Theory of Evolution
by forthelongestday
Summary: Marooned in Traverse Town. Going home. Stuck somewhere between the real world and reality, Leon learns that shedding a name is the easy part. Leon/Yuffie, Aerith
1. Chapter 1

Stupidly long A/N: So, no joke, this was originally a one-shot. A 4000 word one-shot that I had little to no intentions of completing or posting. And then it went nuts and dragged me along for the ride. In my head I call it the 'Leon won't ever STFU and let the damn thing finish-fic'.

Not completely canon-compliant. I changed some stuff up. Kept everyone from their own words, kind of smooshed FFVIII into Radiant Garden, etc. Probably a bit OOC, but really, it's hard for me to tell at this point. Also, can I just say that none of the craziness of Kingdom Hearts ever bothered me until I tried to write about it and then suddenly NONE OF IT MAKES ANY SENSE WHATSOEVER OMG.

Time jumps galore. This is basically 5 inter-connected one-shots. Or 20 drabblish ramblings shoved into 5 chapters. Or something like that. I really don't know anymore. There comes a point where you just gotta give up and let the stupid thing do whatever it wants, and I hit that ages ago.

Thanks to sweeneyanne for the beta, and witchywoman1984 for pre-reading (even though it was like 8 bazillion drafts ago).

This fic is complete and chapters will post as I finish my final-freak out-editing bonanza.

If I owned this KH3 would be out by now.

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**Part 1**

Leon used to love shooting stars, back when he still went by Squall. It wasn't something he thought about consciously until he had to start counting his stay in Traverse Town in terms of years instead of months. He'd seen dozens of lights streak through the night sky since the fall of Hollow Bastion, and he hated every last one. They weren't beautiful anymore, weren't suitable for wishes. Shooting stars were nothing but a bad omen crashing against the horizon, announcing the fall of yet another world. If he was unlucky, it also meant Traverse Town was about to gain more detainees.

XxX

Leon never could figure out how he always managed to stumble across new arrivals within minutes. He weighed the various factors for the hundredth time in four years as the pile of flailing limbs and bunched fabric sorted itself back out into separate people. The most likely explanation was that some combination of instinct and observation altered his routine just enough to push him in the right direction. Leon's cynical side was convinced that karma was screwing with him. The part of him that was just plain angry insisted that four years of penance should have been enough to balance out his sins.

The residents of Traverse Town had adapted to the ebb and flow of new arrivals long ago. They tried to be accommodating, to help whoever turned up cope with what remained of their lives. Almost everyone had been through it themselves at one point or another. They nearly made an exception for Leon, but as luck would have it his unbridled hatred of the heartless and his determination to slaughter every last one of them worked in his favor. There were only so many times he could rescue unsuspecting townsfolk before they were willing to overlook his more glaring defects. They put up with him because he was useful, and he got satisfaction out of keeping the place as free of heartless as possible. He could not and would not ask for more, even if that did mean he'd become the unofficial greeter for whoever turned up.

He crossed his arms and tried not to let too much of his irritation show as the three people on the ground slowly started to gather their wits. Two women and a man this time, no kids. It could have been worse. The woman sighed and stood, brushing the wrinkles from her dress—pink and sugary-sweet, like cotton candy—as if her appearance in an entirely new world was no more bothersome than a tumble. Leon found her nonchalance to be immensely unsettling.

"Well," she said, "I certainly didn't expect _that_ to happen."

The girl hunched over next to her wore a pair of tan shorts, a green, midriff-baring shirt, and, for absolutely no reason he could discern, a bright yellow scarf. It almost gave Leon a headache, that scarf was in no way practical or logical. She had a mop of wild, black hair, and looked like she was torn between what he could only assume was a desire to tackle the woman wearing too much pink or be violently ill. A more thorough examination of the man showed him to carry the same expression. It was almost enough to pique Leon's curiosity, but he ruthlessly squashed any questions before they could form.

"Who the fuck would?" The man muttered to himself and patted down his pockets. He had a hard look to him and a gruff voice. Leon pegged him as a veteran. "The hell is this place, kid?"

The question was repeated twice before Leon realized they were looking to him for an answer. He scowled. "Kid?"

"Don't tell me we got another—"

The woman interrupted before he could get any further. "Cid. Be nice."

"This is Traverse Town," Leon said, wanting to get explanations over with as soon as possible. "It's like a hub. People turn up here when their worlds are destroyed."

At this point Leon was usually admonished for being insensitive.

The girl snorted. "Well, that's to the point."

"I'm Aerith," the woman said, halting any further conversation. She stepped forward and rubbed her palm against her dress before sticking it out in clear invitation.

He kept his arms firmly at his sides. "Leon."

Aerith dropped her hand and gestured to her companions. The movement was so graceful that Leon could have almost sworn she'd never meant to shake his hand in the first place. "Yuffie and Cid. I guess you already know why we're here, though, if you don't mind, I wouldn't object to a more detailed explanation."

Leon didn't owe these people anything, but he understood there was a difference between what was owed and what was deserved. Aerith and her friends had the right to know what had happened to them. Who else was going to do it? It was one of his unofficial duties; another reason the town tolerated his monumentally bad attitude. Leon was willing to do what they were not.

He nodded and gestured toward the small cafe nestled against the west end of the district. It was as good a place as any. He chanced another appraisal of the woman—Aerith—and the gnawing urge to get as far away as possible churned in his gut. Whatever it was about this woman that had his instincts roaring, he didn't want anything to do with it.

XxX

The shift that came with new arrivals never lasted long. Leon always ignored it in its entirety. Hours after he left Aerith, Yuffie, and Cid at the hotel he was back to prowling the districts, itching for a fight. That night he fell into bed well past midnight only to be up with the sun. It was his routine; the one thing he could count on to always stay the same in a place like Traverse Town where everything was in constant motion. Keeping to himself and staying detached were the only hopes he had of enduring.

He'd called in a favor to secure Aerith and Yuffie lodging at the hotel, and the only thing worse than Aerith's determination to be friendly was also having her as his neighbor. Aerith did her best to make seclusion impossible. New residents were always a bother, but none had latched on to him with such ferocity before.

It wasn't much of a surprise that Aerith took everyone by storm in a matter of hours. That was just the kind of girl she was, and no matter how uncomfortable she made Leon, the rest of the town loved her instantly. Yuffie, however, was like Leon, an acquired taste. The first thing anyone saw was a helpless, skinny teenager who—they assumed—needed all sorts of coddling and protection. It was obvious from the beginning that Yuffie was flawed, but the worst and most apparent of her bad habits was her unflinching dedication to ensuring that anyone who perceived her to be weak was convinced otherwise. She spent her first week in Traverse Town stamping the desire to mother her out of every last person she came across. Leon was invariably the one to hear about it when she caused problems, one of the many downsides to being the guy willing to do what others wouldn't, and mourned the loss of his solitude.

He slipped into mental debate with himself over the pros and cons of just getting it over with and strangling the girl for what had to be the twentieth time in under a month. He'd be justified; Yuffie stole, she swore with no regard for company, she set off an explosion in the underground waterway just to see if she could—the list went on forever.

All thoughts on the matter washed away in time with an echoing shriek coming from the direction of the Third District.

Leon didn't need to think about his reactions to these sorts of things anymore. Instinct drove his legs into a run and muscle memory had his blade drawn in the moment before he pushed open the heavy, wooden doors sectioning off the more dangerous area of town. He barely registered the couple fleeing the scene. Then, he froze.

There was Yuffie, standing in the middle of the plaza and flicking throwing stars through a group of shadows with such ease that she looked bored.

"Huh." Leon hadn't expected that.

"Come for the view?" Yuffie asked, obviously pleased with the audience. Her next throw had an unmistakable flair of showmanship to it.

Yuffie just got a lot more interesting, and to Leon's annoyance, a lot less irritating. He'd always had a set criteria for who deserved respect—a ranking system all his own for determining who was worth his time—and Yuffie just blew it out of the water. He'd heard Yuffie and Aerith arguing over her desire to do something about the heartless through their shared wall in the hotel, but he'd thought Yuffie's desire to take up arms against the heartless was born of resentment and a childish anger toward the monsters that stole her home. He never considered the possibility that she had anywhere near the skill required to actually do it.

"How long?" he asked.

Yuffie didn't need him to elaborate. "Since I could."

"Why?"

She smirked and skewered another shadow. "_Because_ I could."

It was a better reason than Leon ever had. He took up a blade because it was expected of him; because that's what would earn his keep and repay the Garden that had taken him in. There was nothing quite like having your whole future assigned to you at the age of five.

"So, what's the assessment, Sarge? Do I get an A?"

"I was a Commander."

Yuffie frowned, mocking him. "Did I over-estimate?"

Leon chose to answer by raising his gunblade and shooting the last remaining heartless on the other side of the plaza.

Yuffie whistled. "Guess not."

Leon took a moment to think about whether or not this new information changed his position. On the plus side, having a partner would be useful—on the other, Aerith would be pissed, and he'd have to actually interact with Yuffie on a regular basis. He gave careful consideration to each of the opposing arguments, then, like he always did when he wasn't sure which way to go, he thought of what Squall would do and did the opposite.

"You want to fight, yes?"

Yuffie eyed him, wary of how he might respond to either answer. What she didn't realize was that so blunt a question laid her bare. She had no chance to defend her reaction, and in the few seconds before she responded Leon saw all he needed to. Yuffie was angry, hateful, and she wanted to roast the heartless almost as bad as he did. It was impressive that she managed to hide such rage—he'd assumed Yuffie announced every thought and feeling she had to the world just to piss people off. After catching a snippet of what laid under the surface, he considered that all that loudness was merely a facade.

He gave Yuffie a minute to pull herself together, to fix her mask back in place. She cocked her hip and shot a challenging sneer his way. "I do."

"Tomorrow. Oh-six-hundred." Leon was surely going to regret this. "We'll see what you're made of."

Yuffie went from suspicious to horrified so quickly, Leon nearly let his amusement show. "Six in the _morning?_ Are you crazy? What the hell would we even do? Assuming I decide dragging myself out of bed for the pleasure of _your_ company, that is."

Leon did smile at that; a feral, vicious grin accompanied the edge lent to his voice. "We hunt."

That certainly caught her attention.

"Aerith's going to kill you." Yuffie sounded positively gleeful. He wondered if Yuffie was bi-polar, or if her crazy mood-swings were just another shield, like her running mouth.

"She can try." She could probably succeed, too, but Leon wasn't worried about it. Aerith was too nice to do any serious damage—probably.

Yuffie looked to be struggling to figure out if she wanted to stab him for dooming her to an early morning or hug him for giving her a chance to prove herself. Since she would probably settle on trying both and either was unacceptable, Leon turned on his heel and headed back to the Second District without another word.

XxX

Leon expected that if he was able to get Yuffie to focus, she could become an invaluable asset. As it turned out, that criteria was irrelevant. He'd known she was good. He hadn't realized her skill was consistent.

Yuffie had shown up on time, and cheerfully introduced Leon to the largest shiruken he'd ever seen in what, he assumed, was supposed to be a threatening manner. He opted against explaining to Yuffie that she was going to have to try harder if she wanted to intimidate him. He didn't know much about her, but he was sure _that_ was a bad idea.

He gave her some distance while she warmed up, and then settled in to watch from a few paces back while she sent knives sailing through the air. Every one of them landed dead center of the bullseye he'd painted on the side of a box sitting on the far side of the alley. At first he tried to keep up a mindless stream of chatter—easy with Yuffie—but when that failed to distract her he'd taken to flinging mild insults every few minutes. He criticized her clothes, called her scarf an obnoxious distraction, even went so far as to call her a skinny, useless child—anything he could think of that would piss her off enough for him to throw her off her game. She gnashed her teeth and narrowed her eyes into a glare that promised retribution, but she kept throwing, and she still hit the target every time.

Leon had to admit defeat.

"You good with anything other than throwing knives?"

"_Kunai!_" Yuffie shrieked, calming down enough to lose the murderous glint in her eyes, but not enough to keep from taking some pot-shots of her own. "God, you could at least know the proper name for them. Though I suppose it doesn't take much brain-power to lug around a giant gun with a sword stuck on the end of it. You may as well be cheating."

Leon was offended. He spent the majority of his life perfecting his technique on a notoriously difficult weapon; he hadn't time for such frivolous things as mastering a secondary specialty. "You think you could handle it?"

"Probably not." Yuffie snorted. "But I'll bet you can't handle mine, either."

Leon knew he wasn't nearly as good as Yuffie where it came to thrown weapons, but pride had him stepping up to the plate and giving it a shot. To her credit, Yuffie didn't mock him nearly as much as he expected. Instead he was forced to endure a lecture he didn't think her capable of on mechanics and theory, plus a few lewd jokes about weak wrists. If she were anyone else, he would have walked away and never come back, but she had a point when she deemed his aim in need of tuning. It was hard to deny when they had side-by-side target practice going on.

In an effort to salvage his pride, Leon found himself teaching Yuffie to use longer blades, and within days it spiraled into a demented contest between them. Who could be the bigger tyrant while still instructing effectively? Leon won.

He didn't think to be suspicious when Yuffie asked for help casting next—a mistake he'd never make again. Yuffie was very competent with magic and a good enough actress that he didn't see it coming until it was too late. Leon avenged his singed eyebrows by moving their patrols up to five in the morning, and made up an outrageous story about how caffeine would inhibit Yuffie's reaction time. She didn't believe him, but she went along with it anyway, and that was good enough.

Leon didn't care about the insults or pranks, so long as in the end, Yuffie would do as he said.

XxX

"I am not going to spend my time enchanting bullets for you, Squall!" Merlin huffed and upended a box full of crumpled papers and unrecognizable nicknacks over his sofa. He poked through the mess for a minute before shaking his head. "Honestly."

Truthfully, Leon hadn't expected Merlin to cooperate, but that didn't stop him from asking. He'd known the eccentric wizard for years; Merlin was the first person he'd met when he came to Hollow Bastion, and was the only other person left after its fall. Most of the time, Leon got on well with him, but the man had a tendency to forget himself, which Leon was getting a painful reminder of. Sure, Merlin could go on for hours discussing mythical weapons or complex spell-theory, but he, unfortunately, had little interest in the resources Leon actually had available.

"Squall?" Yuffie asked, cocking her head to the side as she stared up at Merlin with more interest than she'd previously let on.

"Well, that's his name isn't it?" Merlin squawked, shoving past Yuffie to claw through a set of drawers behind her. "You'd think I have nothing better to do!"

"Squall…" Yuffie repeated, as if she was testing the name out. She looked him up and down and nodded. She tried again, slower. "Squall. Yeah, that seems about right."

"Don't call me that." All he wanted was some combustible ammunition. He should have asked Cid; he was only slightly more likely to blow them up than Merlin.

Yuffie edged toward Merlin, watching with undisguised amusement as he pulled one of the drawers out and dumped its contents onto the table in the middle of the room with a flick of his wand. "You must tell me more of this mysterious creature named 'Squall.'"

"What?" Merlin asked, thoroughly distracted. "Oh, yes, yes. Squall. Such a troublesome boy. _Enchanted bullets_. Of all the ridiculous things to ask for. At least this time he only wants them to explode. As if swinging a slab of metal and firing a gun will save the world."

Leon thought long and hard about shooting Merlin with his oh-so-offensive bullets, but the old man would probably turn him into a frog if he tried. Instead, he grabbed Yuffie by the collar of her shirt and hauled her out of the cottage before Merlin could spew any more slander.

"Oh, are you leaving already?" Merlin called. Leon turned his head enough to see half the man's body hanging out a window as he shouted. "Usually you don't storm out until I've started insulting your upbringing! Which was an abomination, by the way!"

Yes, Leon _definitely_ had to get Yuffie far, far away. Merlin had a tendency to rant, and there was no telling what secrets he'd wind up spilling once he got going. He was going to have to keep a close eye on the two of them. If Yuffie hadn't already picked up on Merlin's loose lips, she would soon, and she already had a wicked smirk that promised she would pursue this avenue until satisfied. He knew he shouldn't have let her tag along.

"Hey! Watch it!" Yuffie stumbled trying to keep up with his strides as he stormed back to the Third District. He released her collar mid-way through the plaza without lessening his pace. "What's your problem?! Exploding ammo would be awesome!"

Leon's gloves creaked under his curled fists.

"Squall is a perfectly nice name," Yuffie said, taking another guess. "And perfectly _fitting_ if you ask me."

He spun in place and fixed her with his most violent glare. "Do _not_ call me that."

Yuffie crossed her arms and tapped her foot. After a moment, she smirked. "We'll see."

It was painfully clear that it was a battle Leon couldn't win, but he was going to fight it anyway. He forced himself to calm. He had principles, and he couldn't let her think she could get to him so easily. He left the Third District with nothing more than a scowl in favor of searching out his back-up plan.

"See you later, Squall!"

He kept himself from throwing a rude gesture over his shoulder, barely. That would probably only encourage her.

It wasn't her fault, not really. Yuffie didn't understand. She didn't know that Squall was weak. He closed himself off to deal with his problems instead of acknowledging that he had issues; as a result, he was blindsided when he couldn't tune it out any longer. Leon was more cautious—he eased into the things that made him uncomfortable so that when the time came he could deal instead of choking. Leon wasn't going to have any tragic epiphanies while the ground collapsed beneath him and shadows ripped their claws through his friends' chests.

He drew his blade. He wouldn't let the past repeat itself, no matter what it took. For better or worse he had allies—mostly competent ones, at that—and he wasn't going to shove them off just because they were they were, on occasion, the most irritating group of people he'd encountered yet. He probably shouldn't have ditched Yuffie back in the Third District, though. He sighed, and resolved to try harder.

He stormed into Cid's shop and set his gunblade on the counter. "High-explosive incendiary rounds."

Cid's answering grin was diabolic, and exactly the kind of reaction Leon was hoping for. "Yeah, I can do that."

Leon was definitely going to get blown up at least once if Cid's excitement was anything to go by. It would be worth it.

XxX

Leon's back hit the concrete wall surrounding the plaza in the Third District. His breath left him in a rush and he barely had enough time to regain his wits before a fireball was zooming toward him. He wrenched his body out of the way and ignored the telltale bloom of pain indicating his shoulder was dislocated. At least it was his left.

They were prepared for the usual brand of shadows and magic-casters, but Leon hadn't expected anything he wasn't familiar with. Instead, they'd managed to stumble upon new types of heartless—one of the most horrific of all possibilities—and some of them were _tough_. There was one twice the size of Leon, and hitting it was like trying to beat a brick wall with a stick. He barely had time to process their new opponents before the damn thing started body-slamming him. Leon felt like a pancake.

He kept his grip loose and cut through the nocturne warming up another spell.

Yuffie cursed and a moment later a throwing star cut through air to take out another one. A thick trail of blood streamed from a gash in her thigh. Leon had lost track of how many times he'd told her she needed to find a pair of heavy pants and a jacket, at least, but she always argued that she wore what she could move in. Maybe after this, she'd listen. She spun in place and took out the shadow skittering around her legs, looking for another chance to rip into her.

"You said this would be easy!"

Leon snarled. "_You_ said you could _concentrate_!"

He wanted to blame Yuffie for the mess they were in, but apparently he still had some twisted sense of honor, and couldn't. Sometimes things didn't go right. Sometimes, a handful of shadows and a few nocturnes kept multiplying and spawning backup until a sure win turned into a back against the wall lucky shot. That was the risk when the fighting wasn't pretend.

Leon was willing to admit that he wasn't as cautious as he should have been. Yuffie should take some of the blame, yes, but the fact remained that she wasn't used to restraining herself, the same as Leon wasn't used to working with a partner. He could have pulled it off if he were flying solo; or if Yuffie had remembered to cover him like she was supposed to.

"On your right! The big fucker!"

Leon ducked instead of attempting a slash. That hadn't ended well for him last time. The distraction proved enough for Yuffie to get in a few hits though, and when the monstrous thing turned to go after her instead, Leon took his shot. Cid's skill with combustibles sure was handy. He let out a long breath. That had taken way too long.

"That the last of them?"

He nodded, then thought to add, "Might be more on the way."

"Retreat?" Yuffie asked.

Leon hated that word. "Yes."

Yuffie's leg was sliced to hell and Leon was nowhere near his best. They had to fall back. He fired off a pair of cure spells at the doorway to the Second District, and the blood streaming down Yuffie's leg started to clot by the time he had to decide where to go next. He directed them toward the alley. There was no sense in dragging a mess through the hotel, and coming in through the front was sure to draw attention he wanted to avoid. He held his arm at his side, careful not to jostle it, and sucked in three large, even breaths. The entire situation, beginning to end, was unacceptable.

"Just your leg?" he asked, trying to get a better look at the injury without moving from his position against the back wall of the hotel.

"Yeah." Yuffie rolled her neck and tried to pretend she wasn't keeping weight off the limb. "What've you got?"

"Dislocated shoulder." He cast another cure on Yuffie. She kept an even face as she helped him out of his jacket, and then stood in front of him with a grim set to her lips. It was not an expression that instilled Leon with confidence. "You do know how to do this, right?"

"Yeah," Yuffie said, taking a firm hold of his forearm with one hand while gripping above his elbow with the other. She shuddered. "Sure. No problem. Walk in the park."

Leon waited. Yuffie adjusted her grip three times, visibly nervous. "Hold still!"

Leon clenched his teeth and struggled to rein in his temper. For all the good falling back was doing, he might as well have stayed for round two. "I _am_ holding still. Stop stalling. You said you could do it, so _do it_."

Yuffie groaned. "This is so gross."

"Fuck it." Leon lost his patience and brushed Yuffie's hands away. Resetting own shoulder was not fun; he'd only ever had to do it once, and hadn't even managed to do it right. It was easier to have someone else pull on his arm until the damn thing popped back in. He knew the theory, and one example of what _not_ to do, and that was about it—but if his options were to get it over with or wait for Yuffie to work up the nerve, he'd do it himself.

Carefully, he grabbed his arm at the elbow and grit his teeth. The hardest part was forcing his muscles to stay relaxed enough for the joint to pop back in. It was easier than he remembered. Relief bloomed from his shoulder, down his arm, and all across his chest. Leon exhaled and tried rotating forward, then backward. Seemed he got it right that time.

The pain and discomfort were almost worth the look on Yuffie's face. "That was even more horrific than if you'd made me do it!"

"Well, it wasn't pleasant for me, either." The only silver lining within miles was that now he could climb up the back of the hotel to his balcony. Leon imagined this was what teenagers felt like when they were sneaking back into their houses in the middle of the night.

Yuffie swung up over the railing behind him, landing with a soft thud followed by a groan and wince. "God, that hurt. What sort of stupid magic do you have in this world that you can't even _heal_? I miss my materia."

"It's magic, not a miracle." Leon seethed. Of all the ridiculous expectations to have. Her leg had nearly been in ribbons. "You're lucky it wasn't worse. Unless you wanted me to be haul you back to Aerith in shreds?"

That shut Yuffie right up. "Yeah, no thanks."

"Thought so. We can have another go at it in the morning; more magic isn't going to help you any right now."

Aerith would murder Leon if she saw Yuffie like this. They couldn't go near her until they got another few of their own spells and potions working, or they were both toast. Aerith had been fairly tolerant so far, but it was no secret that she didn't like them running around like they did. Leon didn't want to bear witness to Aerith's well-hidden temper again. The last time, when Yuffie had cornered her first thing in the morning to inform her that she was partnering up with Leon to take on the heartless, was enough. Aerith had looked five seconds away from wiping out Traverse Town herself. Leon had immediately revised his assumption that Aerith was too nice to do something like set him on fire and then electrocute him just for good measure. If she were angry enough, he doubted she would stop there. Aerith had access to magic he didn't even want to begin to think about.

He was still trying to work out how to avoid Aerith's wrath for getting Yuffie hurt when, silently agreeing with the avoidance plan, Yuffie finished bandaging her leg and collapsed into his bed. She hugged a pillow to her chest and mumbled, "Wake me before noon and die."

Leon gaped at the lump curled up on top of his blankets. How the hell did he manage to get himself into this situation? He jerked his head from left to right, hoping to clear away enough stray bafflement to think through his options. Really, there was only one. What it came down to was that both he and Yuffie had a horrible night, and there wasn't anything to do about it now except clean himself up and sleep in until noon.

"Leon?" Yuffie asked, her voice muffled by the pillow. "Sorry about earlier. That was an embarrassment, huh?"

It was harder to be angry with her after he realized she must feel terrible about what happened; she didn't even try to call him Squall. So maybe the real problem was that for all he claimed to see something different in Yuffie than everyone else, he still wasn't taking her seriously. Not entirely. He had treated her as a burden rather than a partner, and once he thought of it from that angle it was no wonder they couldn't work together efficiently. He definitely hadn't anticipated that she might expect something more of herself, that she might feel bad for failing.

"It's fine. We'll just have to try again." He rolled to his side and closed his eyes, determined to avoid being pulled into any further conversation. For once, Yuffie didn't have anything more to say.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks to sweeneyanne for the beta!

Don't own. :-(

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**Part 2**

It took a painfully long time for Leon to realize Yuffie had moved in with him. It wasn't the kind of thing he'd thought to be suspicious of. She'd been sneaky about it, too. Leon would have kicked her out the moment he noticed if it wasn't for the nightmares. Yuffie's were something else.

The first time it happened, even half-asleep, he'd known right away what Aerith's usual reaction was—and that Yuffie hated it enough to attempt sneaking out from under her care. So, instead of making a big deal about it, he woke her up with two sharp shoves and a mumbled inquiry if she was alright. She said she was, so he rolled over and went back to sleep without another word. Leon had his fair share of nightmares, too, and if the situation were reversed the last thing he'd want was for Yuffie to make a fuss.

The second time was worse. Only two days later Yuffie was kicking and screaming in her sleep again, but she didn't shake it off when he woke her. One look at her face and Leon knew she wasn't even going to try to get any more rest. He'd probably done her a great disservice when he insisted she stop guzzling coffee like her life depended on it. When she was living with Aerith he would have heard her through the wall if she'd been having nightmares, so the only explanation was that by the time he turned in Yuffie had already called it quits on trying to get some sleep. He couldn't help but feel bad for making a difficult situation worse, even if he had been unaware.

Yuffie stared at him while he tried to figure out a way to rescind his caffeine ban without sounding like he was either pitying her or backpedaling. Ten minutes later he came to conclusion it was impossible. He'd just take the hit and tease her a little, enough for her to know he wasn't feeling sorry for her.

Yuffie was still staring. After five uncomfortable minutes she inched closer and wrapped her fingers around his wrist. It was like she wasn't brave enough to go for his hand, couldn't imagine taking such strong a blow to her pride, but needed contact; needed it to be on her terms.

It was easy to forget that she was only sixteen. Leon figured she was more like a twelve year old boy in her head, or a five year old on a sugar rush where it came to energy—but those descriptors had no place in their lives; they belonged in the real world. In reality—in Traverse Town—Yuffie was almost as seasoned as Leon, and it was too easy to forget how tragic that was when she was bouncing all over the place with a dozen throwing stars stashed away in her clothes. Laying in his bed, her hair falling in her face and shoulders too stiff, Yuffie came closer to being a teenage girl. She was fragile in a way she never allowed elsewhere. So, reminded of the difference between the real world and reality, Leon let her keep her fingers around his wrist. He did what he could to let Yuffie be sixteen and afraid without making her admit to it, without making her feel weak.

As time wore on, the nightmares lessened, but Leon didn't think about kicking her out much anymore.

There was something pleasant about the new and previously unconsidered notion that Leon could be useful without his gunblade for company; that he was capable of providing comfort. It was a small thing, keeping Yuffie steady when she slipped, but it made him feel less like a weapon and more like a human being. He'd had bad nights, too, when he was adjusting to life in Traverse Town, still had them even now. Yuffie handled the transition better than most, but that didn't mean she wasn't entitled to her lows. He would let her have them. He would hide her from view and give her sanctuary because she had earned it, and there were so few people who could empathize.

Not that he would ever tell Yuffie any of that. It was difficult to evade her knives at close range.

Aerith wasn't happy with the new arrangement, but in the end there was little she could do about it. Two weeks with Leon, and even Aerith couldn't deny Yuffie was doing better. It was probably for the best anyway; it was a wonder either of them ever got any sleep, and that Yuffie never snapped under all that affection and stress. Leon didn't get along with Aerith like he did with Yuffie, but he didn't dislike her, either. It was nice to be able to do something for her that didn't make him feel massively uncomfortable, regardless of whether or not she outwardly appreciated it.

XxX

"Look, I don't care if you're the baddest son of a bitch in town, if you can't juggle, you're worthless."

It was one of the stupider arguments Yuffie managed to pull him into. Truth be told, Leon _could_ juggle; it was just more entertaining to play devil's advocate.

"I mean, people don't think about it, but it's a useful skill." Yuffie dug through top drawer on the right side of the dresser; her knife collection. It probably said something about them, that the top drawers were full of weapons rather than clothes.

Leon decided to stir the pot. "How is juggling useful?"

Yuffie crowed in triumph, finding the knives she was searching for and then demonstrated her point by alternating tossing them in the air and into wall on the other side of the room.

Leon snorted. "Inefficient. And you do realize that we're going to get in trouble for putting holes in the walls, right?"

"But it looks cool as shit, right?"

Leon rolled his eyes and let her carry on for another fifteen minutes.

Yuffie wasn't a bad roommate, as it turned out. She was messy but not dirty, and she shared laundry duty without a fuss. She had a tendency to talk far too much, but was a surprisingly good listener as long as the topic interested her. Fortunately, battle tactics and weapon assessments held her attention. She was more docile when there wasn't anyone she felt she had to prove herself to.

There was the added bonus that when she wasn't plagued by nightmares, Yuffie had a tendency to talk in her sleep. If nothing else, Leon gained a decade's worth of blackmail material with zero effort out of the deal. It was a good trade. Theoretically, he could probably make her do just about anything he wanted. It figured that once he was waiting for her to do something stupid like make another attempt at building a home-made bicycle, she suddenly had little desire to misbehave.

She gave him space when he needed it, and only expected the same in return. For his part, Leon let her come and go as she pleased, mostly, and turned a blind eye to the nights when it all got to be too much for her. On the bad nights—those times when the fights were hard and no matter how hard Leon scrubbed he never felt clean—he'd let Yuffie curl up next to him, use his arm as a pillow, and listen as she wove crazy tales of her adventures back home. Once her eyes started to droop and her words slurred, Leon would talk about the heartless and Merlin's theories. He spoke of the keyblade, speculated on whether it was fact or fiction, and diligently listed off all the reasons why it shouldn't matter anyway. Weapons could be great—they could be terrifying and powerful, and they _could_ turn the tide—but they were only as strong as their wielder. Leon saw little reason in placing his hopes on something as precarious and flippant as these mythical keyblades sounded to be. Yuffie agreed, and Leon spied a thread of rationalism tucked away beneath all her bravado.

Sometimes, he'd tell her little stories from back home. He never mentioned anything significant or personal, but it wasn't too bad, having someone to talk to, and the distraction helped keep Yuffie from flying off the handle. She wouldn't admit it if he tortured her, but sometimes Yuffie needed something calm—steady—to help her shore up enough courage to make it through the nights when she couldn't help but remember that the life she was living wasn't fair. No matter how hard she tried to hide it, sometimes she got scared.

He found himself wondering if there were weird, little things she did for him, too. He couldn't be sure, but since she justified everything—good, bad, or plain cruel—as 'got to keep you tough, Squally-bear', it was probably best if she didn't actually try to be nice.

"Are you even listening to me?"

"No." Leon shrugged his shoulders and headed out to the alley, Yuffie shouting foul names at his back the whole way. It really was too easy to rile her up.

He made his way down to the First District, forced to stop more often than he'd like to acknowledge the greetings sent his way. It felt like he was stuck under a microscope. Now that he was finally getting along with someone, the people in Traverse Town seemed to have decided that meant he was more approachable. They didn't only come to him when they had problems, they actually said hello. Leon hated it.

They'd warmed up to Yuffie, too, but that was probably more to do with the fact that she'd mustered up enough confidence to stop caring so much what they thought of her. It helped that she had a focus, a way to vent her frustrations that wasn't breaking windows—intentional or otherwise. It was stupid, but for the first time since he'd gotten stuck in Traverse Town, Leon felt like he'd done some good.

Cid's shop was a little thing on the corner near the entrance to the Third District. Leon still wasn't sure what he'd done to get it, and he had no plans of asking. All that mattered to him was that Cid continued to keep him supplied with ammo, and he'd _finally_ stopped referring to Leon as 'kid'. Every now and then, Cid even dug up a few more pieces for his ship. That was the one thing Leon was excited about. He'd worry about not having a home to return to later, when he had the option of leaving.

"You know, it's rude to just walk away without even saying goodbye." Yuffie shook her head in mock indignation, Aerith in tow. "I should be offended. I think I'm offended."

Leon wasn't listening. Aerith shot him a soft, amused smile, and in that moment it hit him. He _knew_ that smile. His unease around her made more and more sense as the comparisons piled up, one after the other: her posture, the sense of magic buzzing all around her, and the sweet way she'd tilt her head and ask him how his day was. He'd sworn he'd never forget, but he never agreed to have such an uncanny reminder so close.

"Dude!" Yuffie laughed and elbowed Aerith in the ribs. "You see what I have to put up with? He doesn't even _pretend_ to be paying attention."

Aerith must have caught something in his expression, though, because the smile slid right off her face, replaced with worry. Leon remembered that look, too. He was going to be sick.

"You're about to walk away without saying anything, aren't you?" Yuffie asked.

Leon did just that. Two hours hunting down rhapsodies in the Third District couldn't clear his head.

XxX

Not long after Yuffie and Aerith showed up, Leon took to spending his free time sitting on the edge of the Gizmo Shop's roof. It was a good vantage point; he could see the doors to both the First and Third Districts, as well as the entrance to the alley. Yuffie's need for autonomy was preserved since Leon couldn't keep an eye on the alley itself, and everyone knew that Yuffie never went through the door if there was a window.

He felt at ease tucked between the columns, legs dangled over the edge. The stones were weathered and smooth against his hands, the alcove spacious, but not too open, and it was the only place in town that afforded him a level head. He was exposed, but people so rarely looked up. They were more concerned with the street-level and their immediate surroundings. From high above Traverse Town he felt less imprisoned. The streets weren't as active as they used to be before the heartless made the Third District uninhabitable, but there was a certain charm only visible when he was suitable removed.

It reminded him another life; another him on another world. Keeping watch was one of the habits Leon would never wish to break, unlike so many of the others. He didn't want to reinvent himself, not really. He just wanted to fortify his weaknesses. When things took a turn for the worse, again, he wanted to be able to say he did the best he could, and it was good enough. He wasn't incapable of learning from his mistakes, after all.

Thinking about it in those terms led to some hard truths. He wasn't moving forward. He told himself that he wouldn't ever make those mistakes again, but there he was, throwing up walls just like old times; thinking that if he didn't let anyone get close, he couldn't get hurt. He couldn't push Aerith away because of an unfortunate similarity she held to a woman who had died long ago, and he couldn't deny that he had found a friend in Yuffie when it suited him. He couldn't keep ranking people based on their usefulness.

Unfortunately, that meant he couldn't pretend he'd be happiest kicking Yuffie off the top of the Gizmo Shop, no matter how many times she called him Squall.

He could almost—_almost_—imagine that if he really was stuck in Traverse Town forever, he might be able to learn to not hate it.

Four hours later a kid fell out of the sky toting the game-changer Leon had never allowed himself to wish for, but was still, unconsciously, waiting on. He didn't believe in it like Merlin did, but he _wanted_ that blade. If anyone should wield it, shouldn't it be someone who gave up the last four years of their life to battle? The kid didn't have the first clue how to use it, anyway.

It was harsh of him to test Sora so violently right out of the gate, but there was truth to the theory that the best way to learn about an opponent was by seeing, first-hand, what they were capable of. Leon could learn even more about an ally by watching them win. Sora passed out. Leon frowned—that wasn't promising.

Despite first impressions, Sora wasn't all that bad. He was too nice and too trusting, and too many other things Leon couldn't appreciate, but he tried. He didn't have much of a choice, after all.

Leon was angry, there wasn't any helping it. There he was, stuck in Traverse Town instead of actually fighting this war, and he had to give pointers to a fourteen year old boy about to run off and play hero. Yuffie flicked him in the earlobe for that one, and then dragged him out to the waterway to let out his aggression. Later, she used him as target practice under the guise of 'training', and proceeded to teach him a lesson on losing gracefully. He couldn't decide which was more disturbing: that Yuffie was adept enough with her throwing stars to make him bleed, or that after less than a year she knew him well enough to know that she should.

He kind of liked Yuffie's sadistic side.

XxX

It felt like the ground had dropped out from underneath him. His stomach raced up, into his throat, and it was all he could do to keep his face impassive as he stared down at Sora's proud grin as he regaled them with a blow by blow of how he'd happened upon Hollow Bastion in his travels. It was surreal. Aerith and Yuffie were smiling. Even Cid looked happy. Leon wasn't sure what he felt, only that it probably wasn't what he was supposed to.

He'd spent _years_ thinking about what it would be like to escape Traverse Town. Now that it was possible, he didn't want to anymore, not when he knew what waited for him back home.

Leon managed to get the lump in his throat under enough control to ask, "How bad is it?"

Sora winced. Leon was thankful for low expectations.

Yuffie seemed to get the idea that something was wrong. Aerith remained blissfully ignorant—or maybe she was just playing it that way. Before he knew it plans were being made and the ship was being prepped. If it had been up to Leon, he probably wouldn't have gone at all. Apparently, that didn't matter.

He couldn't put a name to all twisted emotions running through him. There was anger, a lot of it, and also fair measure of sadness and guilt, but the majority was an unrecognizable swirl that felt far too malicious. To confront Ansem—to make him pay for all he'd destroyed—that dream had kept Leon going in his darkest hours, when slaughtering heartless simply wasn't enough. Instead, he was going to be brought home only to be left behind. Reality was cruel.

He wanted to put it off for as long as he could, but he'd had more than enough of a grace period already. The moment he set foot in that world again, there wasn't going to be any more denial, no more pushing the disaster to the back of his mind and hoping that, given enough time, he could deal with it. He'd have to remember dashing through the shaking halls, knowing he was too late. He'd have to allow all the nagging regrets flowing through the back of his head to rise to the surface; come face to face with the cold, hard fact that if he'd been able to keep his head and accept defeat, then maybe the others wouldn't have had to die. His heart burned in his chest with all he'd repressed in favor of survival, and his side itched with the phantom sting of a wound long scarred over.

Leon allowed himself a day to grieve, both for all he hadn't properly mourned and for this new blow, then his time was up. Before he knew it he was standing in the middle of the First District, staring at the ship that would lead him out of Traverse Town and back to Hollow Bastion. He kept his chin high and marched on board ahead of Aerith and Yuffie. It felt like he was being sent to the gallows.

Flying overhead, it didn't even seem real. The land was dead—everything as far as the eye could see was withered and rotted. There was nothing but desert and blackened ground and Leon couldn't find a hint of the color green in the hour it took Cid to confirm what Sora had already told them. Hollow Bastion was all that was left. It felt strange, like he was an endangered species. Not even the trees survived. He supposed it was lucky that Ansem and his cronies had obviously wanted to spare the castle; it was the only reason Leon was still alive. That was a thought that took some getting used to. He'd spent _years_ mourning previous bad decisions, telling himself that if he'd just grabbed everyone and gotten the hell out of there, then things might be different. Apparently not.

The very air felt different as he strode down the ship's ramp and onto solid ground. There was a new, bitter taint present when he drew in his breaths. There was no more magic prowling through the earth begging to be drawn in, and the once vibrant sky swirled with dark clouds. Leon wouldn't have believed it was his world, except Hollow Bastion was still standing.

The castle was a wreck, infested. The walls crumbled; evidence of swordplay and magic were scarred into the stone. Leon made it as far as the entrance hall before the destruction started closing in on him. Memories best left forgotten trickled through the shields he'd spent so long maintaining, and it was harder than he assumed it would be to lie to Sora and say it was good to be back.

Yuffie and Aerith didn't know what to make of the mess, or Leon. It was different for them. They didn't know how majestic the castle used to be, had no idea how much it had deteriorated. They only knew it was destroyed and Leon wasn't handling it well.

He remembered the first time he set foot in the castle. He'd been searching for a fresh start, a life out from behind the desk he'd been shoved behind without a thought for what he wanted, and he'd found it here. For a few years there had been no such thing as grey morality; no contracts and none of his services being sold to the highest bidder. For a while, he'd been allowed to have a conscience. He was able to do what he was best at, out from under the thumb of the people who wanted to turn him into something he wasn't, and he'd and enjoyed it. That time had been so precious, and in the blink of an eye it was ripped away.

He kicked the rubble out of his path without breaking step. Some of the shattered pieces littering the halls were new—no doubt from Sora's trips through the castle—others, he swore he could identify. Carved into the walls were signs of shotgun shells and flare magic, slashes from his blade decorated the floor, and scattered about were fragments of a vase that fell victim to nunchaku. If he tried, Leon was positive he could trace the whole battle from beginning to end. Right from the front gates where he'd arrived—too late—to the basement he shouldn't have left everyone behind to investigate, and up to the High Tower where he'd been flung into the void.

It was poetic, in a way. For four years Hollow Bastion had been home. Now, another four years after its fall, it was nothing.

The library was the safest place to operate out of. It helped that Leon hadn't spent much time there before, so it was less suffocating than the rest of the castle. When he wasn't sorting through books, he forced himself to navigate the ruined halls. One by one he made his way through the passages and lifts, but nothing had been spared. It was irreparable. He had tried to keep his wish to go home in the back of his mind, but that didn't make it any less painful to realize that he couldn't. Hollow Bastion would never be what it was again. He might as well have stayed in Traverse Town.

He found himself hanging around in the library more and more. He couldn't even be bothered to come up with a suitable excuse for it. There was so little to do. He always thought he'd be able to rebuild what was torn down, that in shedding his name he'd made a silent promise to set right what had gone so wrong, but that had been nothing but a pipe-dream.

It had been difficult to wait out his time in Traverse Town but that was nothing compared to the resolve Leon had to muster up to see Sora off, knowing what he was going to do. He wanted to be the one to gut Ansem like he deserved; Sora would be far too nice about it. He felt robbed. The heartless took his friends, his comrades, and his home—and now he was being denied his vengeance, too.

He felt it, when the passages between the worlds closed on the third day back. Deep in his gut a knife twisted, and Leon knew he'd spend the rest of his life in Hollow Bastion, surrounded by all he'd failed to do. His anger was so selfish, it made him sick. Ansem was defeated, that was the important part, but it wasn't by his hand and at times that was all he could focus on. The heartless should stop coming, but that didn't mean Hollow Bastion didn't have plenty already. These days, all he was ever good for was cleaning up the aftermath. For hours, Leon couldn't stop glaring at the double-doors leading to the Grand Hall. He was acting like a child.

It was mid-afternoon when Yuffie came to find him, and the instant he noticed the shuffling of her feet over the dirty, broken floor, Leon carefully banished all of his more selfish thoughts to the back of his mind.

"Your face is going to get stuck that way, you know." Yuffie tilted her head. "Actually, is it already? It's hard to tell with you."

He said nothing. He wasn't in the mood to poked at.

"It's not that bad, you know. You're home. That's got to count for something."

Leon scowled. Yuffie smacked him in the shoulder hard enough that he was going to have a bruise. She had a perpetual look on her face like she was plotting something, ever since they landed, and Leon found himself looking forward to whatever shenanigans she came up with. Anything to distract him from the new, old, and horrible feelings creeping through his gut. Maybe she'd set the castle on fire, but Leon was never that lucky.

"Come on, then." Yuffie grabbed his arm and started hauling him backward. "Aerith wants to take a look around outside."

He let her lead him away. What else was he going to do?

The town was in shambles, even worse than the castle—and the idea took root.

"It's like a new beginning." Aerith nodded, mindlessly surveying the destruction. "Like coming home."

"This isn't even your world."

"Does that matter?" Aerith asked. "It is now."

He supposed it didn't, he was just having trouble deciding if he wanted Hollow Bastion to be his home anymore. There were too many bad memories, and even worse were the good ones. Leon couldn't rebuild the castle. It was nearly impossible to reconcile the half of him that wanted nothing more than to reclaim Hollow Bastion with the side that insisted the only logical course of action was the pack the castle full of explosives and light it up. There wasn't anything left in that place but rubble and the echoes of a madman. The town, however, maybe that could be salvaged; maybe there was some good to be done here after all.

"We should fix it." Leon barely noticed he was talking out loud. Because he didn't think he could stand living in the castle for even one more day, he pointed to a row of mostly intact townhouses. "And we should start with those."

"Alright." Aerith agreed with a smile.

Yuffie shook her head and groaned. "But that'll take forever!"

"Do you have anything better to do?"

That gave Yuffie pause. "Damn. I hate it when you're right."

XxX

There was a sort of pure and unadulterated pleasure to be found in fixing something with his own hands; release in the act of ripping apart the dilapidated structures and repairing old frames. The walls went up quick, followed by roofs and windows and wiring, but Leon's favorite part was the frame.

They hadn't talked out the particulars, but that didn't mean Leon wasn't aware of the expectations. Aerith, for example, assumed that Yuffie's stay with Leon in Traverse Town had been a temporary arrangement, and now that they were in the position to live in actual houses, Yuffie would be staying with her. Leon knew better. He refurbished a house with two bedrooms. If Aerith thought it strange, she didn't say anything. Leon thought he might get away with not having to explain at all, right up to the day he started moving in.

Yuffie didn't even bother pretending to go along with Aerith's assumption. "_Finally, _I'll have my own bed!"

Aerith froze, one hand clenched on the rag she was wiping down the kitchen counter with. She looked ready to have a fit.

Leon glared at Yuffie. That was the worst thing she could have possibly said. "I suppose it was too much to hope that you were going to be subtle about invading my living space?"

"When am I ever subtle?" Yuffie rolled her eyes and jabbed him in the side with her elbow. Not a second later, she was off exploring the house.

"Leon…" Aerith's tone was warning.

"What? I don't care if she stays here." Leon thanked his ability to blatantly ignore the elephant in the room. There wasn't a chance in hell he was going to feed into Aerith's misconceptions and unnecessary worry.

"Hey! Hey, Squall!" Yuffie called from deeper within the house. "Can we turn the living room into an armory?"

Leon shrugged and called back. "Only if you stop calling me that."

"No deal!"

"Armory? For goodness' sake." Aerith shook her head and started for the door, tossing her rag atop the counter on her way. "On second thought, Leon, you can keep her."

Not a moment later Yuffie was leaning against the frame separating the kitchen from the rest of the house. She smirked. "Too easy."

"You're a bad person."

"And you," Yuffie pointed, "are not getting the bigger bedroom. I've got me a bag full of short-shorts and a suitcase full of shuriken, and we need our _space_."

Leon snorted. "Brat."

"At least I have better sense than to wear four different belts." Yuffie twirled away, laughing. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Ammo, potions, _whatever_."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I think I proofread this. Maybe. Who knows? My fuzzy, decongestant-laden brain is pretty sure it happened at one point or another. *shrugs* I'm all wonky and easily distracted right now. ****Ooooooh, Dissidia...**

**Don't own.**

* * *

**Part ****3**

Leon was hallucinating. He had to be. There was no other explanation for the swarm of heartless writhing over the grounds surrounding the dark, twisted Vale off in the distance. It had to be in his head—maybe he was dreaming? He couldn't look away.

Everything had been getting better. After nearly a year of hard work the town was on the mend; people were even starting to show up again. Yuffie and Leon had managed to clean up most of the remaining heartless and Cid designed a defense system that took care of the rest. Aerith had been happier since Cloud showed up, and Yuffie had _finally_ stopped painting random walls in his bedroom strange colors. They were getting back on their feet, and now this.

Yuffie let out a low whistle behind him.

"Please tell me you don't see it, too."

"Sorry to disappoint." Yuffie moved forward and shook her head. "That does not look good."

Dread prickled Leon's gut. He didn't know where they came from—how they were even there in the first place—but he knew they were _coming_. They weren't anywhere near prepared for something of that magnitude. He only had a handful of fighters, and he could only count on Yuffie. Cid had too much on his plate as it was, and Cloud's dedication was sporadic at best. Leon briefly entertained the idea of locking Aerith in her house, but dismissed it. She would never forgive him.

It was like being shoved right back to square one. He frowned. "This is a problem."

"Understatement."

"No shit."

Yuffie rocked back on her heels. "So, what do we do?"

Leon drew his gunblade and exited the bailey. "We kill them."

And then, just when it seemed like he couldn't possibly be pushed any closer to the edge, the nobodies showed up.

XxX

Leon's mood was black and tangled; he was a coil wound too tight, a disaster waiting to happen just like the mountains of heartless he was determined to hack his way through. Any residual hope of repairing Hollow Bastion or himself had been shattered the instant he caught sight of the countless heartless slithering under the Vale.

His patrols had twisted into something dangerously obsessive. Everyone—even Cid, even _Cloud_—had approached him with some combination of demands, orders, pleas, blackmail, or even threats to handcuff him to his bed, but every last one of them fell on deaf ears. He couldn't stop. He felt like he was sleep-walking through a nightmare, caught in some horrible alternate reality where the past repeated itself over and over—and he knew the ending already. He wouldn't survive it again.

The heartless could sense his rage; they were drawn to him. They'd come at him for hours on end, each kill did so little to satisfy him. His blade cut through shadows like butter; he didn't bother with bullets. He wore thin under the strain, but it was a price he was willing to pay. Every creature that fell to him was one less that would be coming after them later. He needed to make a dent in their numbers, had to take out as many as he could before the situation turned into a crisis.

He was on a mission. Waiting was not an option. He wasn't going to stand guard and take the defensive position, hoping Sora would show up and pull something out of his ass in time to fix the sick cycle Hollow Bastion was stuck in. For all he knew, Sora was home, too, though he had a hard time believing the boy wouldn't turn up sooner or later. Leon would ask for help when he did, too—his pride was hardly worth Hollow Bastion—but until the time came when he had to suck it up and beg a fifteen year old to do his dirty work, he'd do it himself.

He hunted. He threw himself all-in and resigned himself to waging a one man war against the shadows creeping their way toward the town he poured everything he had left into. Leon rebuilt that place with his own two hands, and the heartless were going to have to go through him if they wanted to destroy it again. It was easy to fall back into the vendetta. It never left him, had always been there; simmering, waiting. His rage was distracted by having something productive to do, but it was never gone. His body adjusted to the strain and lack of sleep after the first week. In the middle of the second he was almost numb enough that he could delude himself into believing he could keep it up forever if he had to.

XxX

It was Yuffie's turn to try to talk some sense into him. She laid atop the parapet lining the bailey, waiting for him to get back from his second trip out to the maw. Her eyes were closed, muscles relaxed. She looked like she was doing nothing more than enjoying the fresh air. Leon knew better than that.

"Don't bother."

"What?" Yuffie asked. She glanced his way, took in the sweat, bloody scrapes, and tension. "Pointing out that you're killing yourself?"

He gave her a sharp look. "Or any commentary whatsoever."

"It's no big deal. I'm not worried about it." She said it like it wasn't going to bait him. Leon knew that trick, too.

He crossed his arms and waited. Yuffie couldn't stand it if he refused to ask what she wanted him to.

She glared and sat up, gave in. "Aerith's been taking lessons, brushing up on her offensive magic. We figured we'd each pick up one of your patrols."

Leon's voice was dark when he asked, "What?"

Yuffie shrugged, back to being confident she had the upper hand. Her next words were scathing. "It's not like it's anything horribly dangerous. You wouldn't lie to us and say you're fine and it's nothing you can't handle if that wasn't true, right?"

"I _can_ handle it."

"Oh." Yuffie tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Then you must think Aerith and I are incapable."

Leon was fucked. They were playing dirty now. He'd never been good at navigating emotional blackmail.

Yuffie kept going. "Either that, or you actually _are_ trying to commit suicide by heartless. You know, that would totally make you about the shittiest kind of friend there is. Just saying."

His only chance was to try and intimidate her into giving in before she could take him down. "Back off, Yuffie."

"No can do, Squall."

He snarled. "It's _Leon_."

Yuffie didn't break eye contact, didn't back down. She waved her arm toward him and scoffed. "I don't know. This seems like more of a Squall thing you're doing here."

The only thing that kept his weapon sheathed was that she couldn't possibly have known how akin her insult was to being smacked in the face with a slab of concrete. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his gunblade so hard his gloves creaked. His forefinger caressed the long neglected trigger, seeking comfort from the violence pulling it would wreck. She was _maddening_. "I mean it. Back off. This isn't going to work. All you're doing is pissing me off."

"Sorry, but no." She sounded like she actually meant it. "Let me put it this way—you used to be a mercenary, right? Would you take this job?"

"That was a long time ago." Before Traverse Town, before Hollow Bastion—he wasn't even sure how Yuffie had found out about it. Like always, he blamed Merlin.

"Fine. As a Commander, would you assign it to one of your subordinates?"

Leon's silence was answer enough.

"You don't have to like it; you just have to make a choice. Give it a rest or accept help."

He had his options. He could give in and cut back, let Yuffie and Aerith march out into that pit of heartless by themselves, or admit that the only reason he was okay with going out there himself was that he'd stopped caring about what happened to him a long time ago. There wasn't much of a choice. He _hated_ it when Yuffie was the rational one.

The situation was bad, yes, but he refused to throw either of them into the middle of it because, well, he _had_ lied to them. It was a hundred times worse than they suspected, and there wasn't a chance in hell he was letting either of them go anywhere near the maw without him. Leon had been through worse and survived. Actually, he was pretty sure Aerith and Yuffie had, too, but that wasn't the point. Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew Aerith and Yuffie were right. He wouldn't stand for either of them running themselves ragged, and he was behaving unreasonably enough that he really had forced them into their subterfuge. That didn't mean he liked it.

"Your assistance won't be necessary. There is no need to continue with such aggressive tactics." He clenched his teeth and bit back any commentary about what a low trick she was pulling. He could have shoved her right off her perch.

"Great!" Yuffie beamed, smug and victorious. She stood and started pushing him toward town. "Best go tell Aerith! I better go along with you, just to make sure you don't get lost."

Leon had never managed to hate Yuffie more than he liked her, not since Traverse Town, but he was coming close. She followed him all the way back to town, never leaving his side until he knocked twice on Aerith's door and shoved it open.

He stormed into the house and growled. "_No._"

"Oh, wonderful!" Aerith clapped her hands together in front of her chest, delighted with Leon's violent entrance. "So, you're able to cut back enough that you don't need us to help?"

Leon stalked right back out the door without another word, furious with himself for being so easily manipulated. He almost went back on his concession, but he didn't want to find out whether or not Aerith and Yuffie were bluffing.

XxX

Leon rearranged his routine of walking out from the bailey to the maw every day. He didn't chance the depths anymore. The route was invariably full of heartless with the occasional nobody wandering by; at least he could do that much without feeling like he was risking the town or reigniting Aerith's fury. Sometimes Yuffie would tag along, but when she patrolled she tended to stick to the reconstruction sites.

He hadn't seen Cloud around much, no one had. With the exception of Aerith, Cloud was anti-social to the point of ignoring all but the most direct of questions. Leon had never been able to feel comfortable around Cloud; he wasn't sure if he could take him down if he had to. Leon knew he was patrolling, too, but they hadn't run into each other. That is, until the day Leon stalked his way through the bailey to find Cloud waiting for him. Leon was immediately suspicious—it would be just like Aerith to badger Cloud into helping him out.

Cloud answered before he was asked. "Figured we'd cover more ground if we coordinated instead of doing our own thing."

Leon nodded, still unsure of Cloud's motives, but did not object. He didn't mind having company. Cloud was quiet, and Leon never passed up an opportunity to observe his sword-work. Besides, if Aerith had sent him, Leon would be in for nothing but a lecture when he got back if he sent him away. If not, well, he'd never find out what Cloud wanted if he ditched him.

They were halfway through the maw when Cloud made his move. "So, what are you trying to atone for here?"

Normally Leon wouldn't even consider answering, but there was something empathetic in the way Cloud asked. The answer was kind of obvious anyway. Cloud was probably only looking for an opening to start a different conversation.

"Take a look around." Leon paused. He might as well ask. "What about you?"

"Take a look at your neighbor," Cloud answered, as if he expected the question.

Leon and Aerith had never been close. She was a constant reminder of the people he loved most and lost to the darkness, and it was easier to keep his distance. There was also the small matter of the grudge he was still holding against her for teaming up with Yuffie. He could see now that they had been right, but that didn't mean he liked being played. At least Yuffie had been up front about her side of the ultimatum. Still, despite all of the reasons why he shouldn't react, an intense rage bubbled from his gut at Cloud's implication. He had his blade raised in a second. "You hurt Aerith?"

Cloud wasn't concerned with Leon's aggressive stance. "Got her killed."

"But—"

"I don't understand it either. She was dead, but she wasn't…" Cloud struggled for a moment to find the right word. "Gone. She wasn't gone."

Leon lowered his weapon and examined Cloud as he tried to put the pieces together. His erratic behavior made a twisted sort of sense with this new information. Still, he couldn't leave lose ends. "You hurt her, or Yuffie, and I will end you."

Cloud nodded. "We have an understanding, then."

Cloud turned and walked back the way they came without another word. Leon had a feeling that the whole exchange—every word and every reaction—went exactly the way Cloud wanted it to. He didn't know if he should feel used or impressed.

XxX

Aerith wasn't good at controlling her protective side, but she did try to. Everyone knew she felt maternal toward Yuffie, though the cause and effect shifted often. At first it was the whole living with Leon thing. Aerith hadn't objected back in Traverse Town, but once it became apparent that it wasn't a temporary arrangement, she started to worry. It hadn't helped that Yuffie had continued to stay with him once they got to Hollow Bastion.

Aerith was nice about her disapproval at least. Leon figured it would have helped if he'd latched onto a parental mindset toward Yuffie, too. He had tried to think of her differently, for a while, but the fact of the matter was that at first she was an annoying, nightmare of a girl, then she was an ally, and eventually she became his friend. He'd always been taught that rank should be equal to ability, and Yuffie had earned her place as his comrade. To revoke that would be disrespectful, no matter the designation it was replaced with.

Still, Aerith's worry continued to grow and her theories ran wilder. Leon was starting to harbor a burning hatred for the term 'co-dependent'.

Aerith's grievances ran far and wide: she didn't like that Leon refused to keep tabs on Yuffie, thought it irresponsible that he let her run wild without thinking to set boundaries. She had even complained once that he hadn't given her a curfew. He didn't see the point. Yuffie could take care of herself, and so long as she didn't feel restricted she was fairly honest about where she went and what she did. For her part, Yuffie stayed out of trouble because she knew if she did something stupid, Leon would breath hell down her neck for weeks on end. Yuffie was a master of evasion, but Leon could always find her when he wanted to, and he could make her miserable when properly motivated. Not to mention he was still sitting on a gold-mine of blackmail. He couldn't exactly tell Aerith about that last part.

Still, it wasn't Aerith's fault she was over-protective, and in an effort to mollify her Leon resolved to try to be less standoffish. Having dinner together was a small but efficient way of letting Aerith feel like she was taking care of them. It kept her from going too crazy, and Yuffie enjoyed it—most of the time.

This was not one of those times. Leon was only half-way through his meal when Aerith started pushing again.

"Have you thought about what you want to do with yourself once we finish getting the town fixed up?"

The question sounded innocent, but Leon and Yuffie knew better. Aerith probably figured that since she and Yuffie had been able to get Leon to slow down, she might as well go for two out of two. They shared a look across the table. Leon shrugged, and Yuffie went back to staring at Aerith like she'd grown a second head, her fork frozen mid-way to her mouth. "Huh?"

"When this is over, what do you want to do?" Aerith let out a relieved smile when Yuffie appeared to be giving the concept serious thought.

"I'd probably make a wicked-awesome bounty-hunter."

Aerith's smile was wiped from her face in the time it Leon to blink. "Or you could go to school."

Leon could see the outrage building behind Yuffie's careful and controlled smile. He defused the situation the best way he could think of. "You can keep working with me. Doesn't matter how many heartless we clear out, there will always be something."

Aerith gave him a dirty look. Apparently, this conversation wasn't so much about Yuffie having a future as it was about Yuffie having a _different_ future. Leon didn't see what the problem was. If Yuffie wanted to fight they couldn't stop her. It was better to give her something to fight for, a focus, rather than leave her loose and hope she came up with something on her own. She was too young to do that intelligently—hell, sometimes Leon thought he was too young for it, too.

"I'd want a command position." Yuffie snapped out of her indignation enough to continue eating.

"I could put you in charge of spying, thieving, and general tomfoolery."

"Man, if you're using words like 'tomfoolery', you've officially crossed the line into _old._" Aerith's forehead connected with her palm, and Yuffie wasted no time pointing out, "And if you're doing that, you've definitely been spending too much time with Squall."

"Leon." He corrected her out of habit more than the delusion that it would do any good.

Aerith let the subject drop for the rest of their dinner, only to take it back up after Yuffie skipped out on helping with the dishes. Leon had a bad feeling that he wasn't going to like this at all.

"I think we should make her find something else to do with her time besides fighting heartless."

Leon arched an eyebrow. "Make her? You aren't her mother, or even her guardian, for that matter. Yuffie is eighteen. You can't _make_ her do anything."

"I know that! It's just… I'm worried that we made a mistake, letting her fight like we have." Aerith bit her lip. "I know we couldn't have stopped her, but I don't think we should have given in so easily—we shouldn't have let her think it was the only way she could help."

Leon didn't know what she was talking about, or when the hell they became a 'we' where it came to this particular subject. Yuffie knew her worth, and she knew that it did not begin and end at her combat abilities. "I don't understand."

Aerith huffed. "I'm afraid that she thinks these constant battles are all she's good for."

Leon tried not to laugh, but it was hopeless. He was starting to form a theory that Aerith's concern over Yuffie living with him stemmed from her thinking he was a bad influence. "I'm sorry, but I don't think you can understand this type of situation."

Aerith looked skeptical, but she was listening for now. Leon couldn't ask for much more than that, especially when he was withholding so much information. He'd never tell her about the bad nights in Traverse Town—it would be a complete betrayal—but that refusal left him at a loss as to how he could explain that Yuffie wasn't ever going to back down. She'd had dozens of chances already, and every time she came back to the fold. There were lots of reasons, but the only one he knew for certain was that Yuffie was like him; she was a warrior.

In the end, it was best to tell Aerith what he was sure of. "She can't lay down arms if she's able to fight; it's not in her blood. It was not us who made her this way. Besides, we need her. This isn't the time to hand out vacations, or did you forget about the thousands of heartless surrounding the Vale?"

That was apparently the wrong thing to say. Aerith's fist slammed down on the table. "She has already given up her childhood for one war! This isn't even the second time, it's the _third!_"

Leon hadn't known that. He knew about Sephiroth, how Yuffie met the rest of her group and was drawn into a battle with their very world laid on the line, but he'd never heard of any other war Yuffie took part in. It must have been near a decade ago if her stories of running around before she'd met Cloud and Aerith were all true. She couldn't have been more than a child. Leon would have liked to live in a reality where that knowledge made a difference.

Aerith wasn't finished. "She is a teenager. She should be doing teenager things! Instead, she's got more battle-scars than you."

"And you're, what, twenty-four? If we're raking ourselves based solely on age, I win." Aerith gave him a dirty look for that one. "Do not deny her the status she's carved out for herself. She did a selfless and brave thing every time she chose to stand her ground instead of running, and you shouldn't belittle it."

"I just want her to be able to have a normal life, for once. If in the end that's not what she wants, fine—but she should be given the opportunity to both understand and make that decision. When will it end? When is she going to get to settle down and just _be?_" Aerith took a deep breath. When she spoke again, a note of her usual calm trickled through. "All I want is for everyone to be safe and happy, and why is that too much to ask? We've paid our dues, every one of us. I want… I want the two of you to start thinking about the future. There will be life beyond the heartless and it scares me that neither of you can see it."

Leon knew she had to have a point in there somewhere, he just didn't expect it to cut so deep. Wasn't that his biggest problem? He couldn't envision a future anymore; every time he tried all he saw was the circling darkness moving ever closer. He fought because he had to—to protect the people and town he cared for—but there was no end to it.

He considered his next words carefully. "If that is your goal, you are going about it the wrong way."

"And what is the right way?" Aerith asked. Defeat ran heavy through her slouched posture.

Leon shrugged and shook his head. He didn't know.

"I don't like it."

This time, Leon managed a little sympathy. "I know you don't, but that's not a bad thing. It helps keep the rest of us grounded."

Aerith's laugh was rueful and sad. "I'd hate to imagine what you'd be like without someone to rein you in."

Leon didn't want to think about that, either. It was easier to look back on their time in Traverse Town and more recent events in Hollow Bastion objectively once he achieved some distance. He'd been reckless, had even gotten Yuffie caught up once or twice by biting off more than he could chew, not that she contributed much to keeping him rational. Without Aerith demanding that he kept Yuffie safe, he would have been killed by now.

"It scares me, how far you're willing to go." Apparently, Aerith couldn't help but get one last shot in.

Leon stood, knowing that letting Aerith keep going wasn't going to end well. He turned back at the door though, deciding to offer one last olive-branch, even though it was going to hurt. "What I find scary is the way you and I can argue like we've been practicing for years."

"Cid calls it the 'ex-wife nag.'" Aerith cracked a genuine smile. "It frightens you?"

"Beyond words." He resolved to keep the deeper reasons why to himself, for now. It helped, being back, but there were some losses he would never be ready to talk about.

Aerith wrung her hands together atop the table. She had something else to say. Leon was sure he didn't want to hear it, but waited the obligatory few seconds to see if she'd spit it out. She didn't. "What?"

"Are you okay?" Her question was so earnest that it took nearly everything he had to keep his reaction from showing on his face. Aerith saw it anyway. "I didn't think so. I don't suppose there's anything I can do to help?"

Normally Leon would either lie or storm off without any indication that he even heard her, but in that moment she reminded him so much of Rinoa that his heart might as well have been breaking all over again. He shook his head, partially to banish the comparison he'd spent too long denying, and to give his answer.

"But Yuffie can." Aerith nodded to herself.

"I guess." His throat felt like sandpaper, but he forced himself to elaborate because those two words were completely inadequate. "I know you want to protect her. I do, too, and I'm doing that the best way I know how. Before… I never let anyone share the weight, and we were weaker for it. I refused to work in a group, spent so much time running around trying to save everyone that I couldn't help anybody. I was focused on all the wrong pieces. I'm trying to do things better this time around, and that means I have to trust in my comrades. I can't stand by while the world burns, again. I won't do it."

He'd gone horribly off-topic, and was being wildly hypocritical considering his recent behavior, but it had to be the most he'd ever said to anyone about what happened to Hollow Bastion and why he felt responsible. It was probably the most he'd ever said to Aerith, period. He felt lighter.

Aerith's lip quirked in a knowing smile, and god, Leon missed that smile so much he couldn't breathe.

"You remind me so much of her." He didn't mean to say it. Thankfully, Aerith didn't ask.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part ****4**

The battle came swift—one event stacked onto another, until the heap was so massive there wasn't anything to do but cleave through it. Leon felt the change in the air, the subtle tension winding through Hollow Bastion as the heartless begin their march. He saw it coming a mile away. There was always someone pulling the strings, and Sora's appearance might as well have been a bright, flashing billboard announcing for them to draw their weapons.

In the thick of it, Leon was almost enjoying himself. There was something thrilling about standing back-to-back with another sword-arm, talking shit, ready to slice through anything stupid enough to dare come his way. In that moment, with Cloud, the battle was fun. He'd forgotten what it felt like to be outnumbered and completely confident, nonetheless. It was what drove him, the reason he picked up a gunblade and spent the whole of his childhood and teenage years learning to use it perfectly. They were surrounded ten feet in every direction, but it didn't matter. They had it in the bag.

Leon had no issues admitting his inappropriately good mood was partially due to battle-lust, but mostly it was that he was finally back on the front line. For one glorious hour there was nothing but Leon, his gunblade, and his backup—and it _mattered_. Then, the last heartless fell, and time started moving again.

He was breathing heavy; sticky with sweat and blood, heart racing. He allowed himself a few precious seconds to savor the feeling before he had to snap back to reality. He wasn't the only one fighting.

Leon slashed his way through the rest of the route separating the town from the maw, keeping an eye out for anyone who needed help. Everyone was holding their own. Cid had a small group on the ropes as Yuffie helped Sora clear out the trail leading to the maw. Leon picked up where she left off, and just like that he was back in the thick of it. He split from Sora halfway to the fissure, at first with the mindset that he needed to check on Yuffie—but then he remembered the look on her face as she swung her shuriken and reminded himself that Yuffie was fine. He cut an alternate path down the trail. Three strange lights flitted by, and Leon almost laughed out loud; the fairies were actually helping them? Laguna would _die_ if he were alive to see it_._

He strode forward through the fissure.

Suddenly, it wasn't fun or thrilling. His thoughts betrayed him, and for a few seconds he envisioned Aerith and Cid in the midst of what Sora was cutting his way through, out of reach in the middle of the maw. The sight of him there, all alone, drowning in heartless was enough to knock Leon into damage assessment mode. The kid was good, Leon would give him that, but it didn't change the fact that the only person he was okay with being in that sort of a situation was himself; preferably with someone like Cloud or Yuffie watching his back.

He was struck with the urge to go back, to make sure everyone else was okay and then lock them up in their houses until this was all over, but it wasn't an option. Last time he spent so long running around that he didn't get anything done, and at that moment Sora was the one who needed backup the most. The others could take care of themselves, even Aerith, and there was no time to retreat. Yuffie was probably having the time of her life.

Leon pressed forward, took care of the stragglers. He let it be Sora's fight even though he didn't want to, and only backed off once Sora had broken through to the depths. He had a theory about what was waiting past the maw, and it was harder to let that one go. Leon wanted nothing more than to charge in there and blow a hole through the bastard who unleashed hell on Hollow Bastion for the second time. He had almost convinced himself to do it, too, when light shot out of the earth into the sky, and Sora was gone.

His heart sank. After all that had happened, he'd become somewhat attached to the boy.

"He'll be fine. He's a lucky kid.[find actual quote]" Of all the things that happened, Cloud reappearing long enough to share a few optimistic words before striding away had to be the most bizarre. Actually, Cloud referring to Sora as a lucky took the prize. Leon couldn't fathom how Cloud could possibly think something like that. Sora was many things: adaptable, determined, and a foolish, foolish boy. Those traits were what got him through all the obstacles shoved in his way whether he was running or stumbling, but he was _not_ lucky, not with the hand fate had dealt him.

Sora had grown strong since the day he crashed from the sky to land at Leon's feet. He was more weathered after his first journey, and he understood what it meant to fight with all he had, and lose. No matter how much it still irked him or how much envy Leon still had for the boy, he grieved the path Sora had and would continue to walk. Sora was too bright to burn out in an instant, but still, he smoldered and smoked with each step.

Leon indulged himself in a fleeting wish that wherever Sora had gone, he would be alright.

It was over, but it didn't feel real. The surge of adrenaline that had kept him going tapered off. He needed to check on the others.

The return trip to the postern had a different feel to it than fighting his way out. All he could see was carnage; evidence of spell-work and dark stains on the ground where he fired his gunblade. There were gouges in the dirt and sides of the canyon that wound between the town and the Vale—Cloud's work—and a few kunai that Yuffie didn't have time to recover. He made sure to grab all the knives he came across. He didn't want Yuffie coming back any time soon.

He could admit that it might be better to fight as a team, but in a lot of ways it wasn't any easier than fighting alone.

Leon caught up with Aerith on the stairs. She couldn't offer him any more than a weak smile at first, but she was resilient. Every step she took was lighter than the last, and by the time they've reached Yuffie and Cid at the postern, Aerith was back to her old self. He felt better once he could see with his own eyes that everyone was okay.

Yuffie gave him a critical once-over, frowning at the minor cuts he'd managed to collect and the blood on his jacket and arm. Leon pointedly nodded toward her knee. She let it go. A wicked grin spread over her face. "Permission to high-five, sir?"

Leon sighed and rolled his eyes, acting more put out than he was. Truthfully, Yuffie's joke was kind of funny. He held out his hand. "Granted."

Yuffie leapt up and smacked her palm against his. "Kicked their asses!"

"Sure did." Leon had a grin tugging at his lips, and hadn't even been trying to repress it, but with his next thought, he frowned. "Got rougher than I would have liked, though."

Yuffie sank back down into a seat on the parapet. "Come on. Don't be a downer."

"Where's Cloud?" Aerith asked, making a deliberate scan of the area before sitting next to Yuffie. Leon was thankful for the quick change in focus.

"Who knows. He left right after Sora."

"Tifa?"

Leon didn't realize Aerith knew she was there, though, when he stopped to think about it, the possibility of anyone missing all the crashes echoing from Ansem's study was absurd. Tifa wasn't even the slightest bit subtle, and she had been determined to find Cloud even if she had to tear Hollow Bastion to pieces to do it. Leon got the gist of why she was looking, but still, he felt kind of sorry for Cloud. Tifa probably wouldn't be any less demanding once she got her hands on him, and Leon did not doubt for a moment that she _would_ find him. "She's around, I think. She didn't sound like she had any plans to leave."

Yuffie's head jerked up, eyes bright. "Tifa's here?!"

"Better watch out, Leon." Aerith laughed. "You may be about to lose your roommate."

"Nah." Yuffie waved her hand. "Tifa would never let me get away with half the shit he does."

Leon wished Yuffie wouldn't say stuff like that, but Aerith laughed it off. She even looked to be genuine in her humor.

"I'll hunt her down," Cid offered. He ambled off toward Ansem's study. "Got some stuff I want to talk to her about anyway."

Yuffie's expression fell. "That's still only half."

"I'm sure they're fine," Aerith said, one hand rubbing Yuffie's back in an attempt to reassure her.

Leon took great care to stifle the nagging voice in the back of his head that whispered it was't fair; two of Yuffie and Aerith's friends had turned up, and all of his were dead.

Aerith had explained the best she could after his brief chat with Cloud out in the maw. She'd said that their world—their planet—was different from his. It was alive. When the heartless came, they didn't attack the people; they attacked the planet itself. She'd been there, somehow, absorbed into an energy of sorts when she'd died. That was why when Yuffie and Cid were expelled, she'd been able to hitch a ride; or it could have been the other way around. Leon couldn't untangle half of what she'd said, but what he took away from that conversation was that because the planet itself had died, the people were free to be cast into the void and wind up in places like Traverse Town before the heartless had a chance to get them. That definitely wasn't what happened to Hollow Bastion.

He was yanked back into the conversation when Yuffie started describing her end of the battle. Of course, she made herself out to be far more heroic than she probably was. Leon was about to knock her down a few pegs for the hell of it, but Aerith got there first.

"Hey, now! Who saved who from falling off that cliff?" Aerith asked, teasing and proud. Leon would have been proud of her, too, if his heart hadn't seized in his chest at her words.

"What?"

Yuffie shot a dark look at Aerith. "It was nothing."

"You almost fell off a cliff?" Leon couldn't quite grasp it.

"But I didn't." Yuffie drew herself up and visibly resigned herself to telling Leon the whole story. "It's no big deal. Got caught by surprise when the heartless charged _past_ me instead of into me. Aerith was there; nothing a quick heal and hand up couldn't fix."

Nausea churned in Leon's gut; it was a sensation he never wanted to feel again. For a brief moment it didn't matter one bit that Yuffie was obviously fine, they were all fine, because he couldn't stop watching it play out in his head with a very different result. It was possible that he was starting to get far too emotional, but the thought fluttered away in the face of more pressing matters.

"Squall, chill."

"Leon." He mumbled, half-aware, but Yuffie's jab did its work to pull him back to the present.

Leon decided what he really needed was to be alone. Half an hour in the shower couldn't hurt, either.

XxX

No matter how hard he tried, Leon couldn't shake his tension. His high wore off long ago, and he felt like he was right back where he started. He wasn't happy or relieved that it was over because it wasn't. No matter how hard they pushed, there was always more waiting. It wasn't the first time he'd wondered if his inability to accept the respite of victory meant there was something fundamentally wrong with him. Relief never came. Every time he thought it was over, it wasn't, and he couldn't afford to let his guard down.

He spent the afternoon lying in bed, hands beneath his head, staring at the ceiling while the others celebrated. They deserved their fun, and it wasn't their fault he couldn't calm his mind long enough to be happy that they've finally won a battle.

"You want some company?" Yuffie asked. She was leaning against the doorframe. He didn't even hear her come in.

"No."

"Too bad. Scoot over."

He obliged, mostly because he knew arguing with her wouldn't do any good—but there was a part of him that was happy she never listened.

Yuffie kept quiet and still for twenty minutes while he mulled things over, and then, deciding she waited long enough, tugged one hand from behind his head and invaded his personal space to rest her head on his arm. Leon made a quiet noise of assent; he should have realized.

It was another one of those nights where it was too easy to remember how tragic their reality was. Yuffie was curled up against his side, except now she was almost nineteen instead of barely sixteen, and she wasn't as concerned with hiding how hard it was to always be fighting. He supposed that was something that came with growing up in an environment like theirs. It was non-stop war, and sooner or later they had to learn to grab hold of anything that made them feel human, even if it was only for a few minutes. Even if it made them feel weak.

He thought about the battle, went over it from start to finish, and because he was more than a little masochistic he thought about what might have happened if the Gullwings hadn't switched sides; if Aerith hadn't happened to be rushing by when Yuffie collapsed at the edge of the cliff. There was no denying that if something had happened to her, it would have wrecked him. He was struck with an almost uncontrollable urge to hop out of bed, run next door, and ensure Aerith understood just how well she performed under pressure and how much he appreciated her for it.

Yuffie jabbed him in the side and muttered something he couldn't catch, like she knew exactly what he was thinking.

He'd been analyzing every little detail he could remember for hours. It didn't seem good enough anymore, picking off heartless little by little every time he got the chance until they reached critical mass. There had to be some middle ground between playing it safe and being foolishly reckless, but for the life of him Leon could never manage to strike that balance.

"You done yet?"

"Huh?"

Yuffie did a scarily accurate impression of him. "_Thinking_."

"I'm surprised you can recognize the process."

Yuffie chuckled and sprawled out on her back, head rested against his shoulder and limbs taking up far more of the bed than should be possible. "I'm glad you're alright. It would have really sucked if, you know, you'd died or something. Not to mention that your stubborn ass would have wound up being a _bitch_ of a nobody to kill."

"I can handle a few heartless."

Yuffie made a vague, wide gesture in the air. "Sure, sure. I know. But I didn't realize that when you say 'a few', you mean 'a few _thousand._'"

He didn't want to talk about it. He already went over the battle beginning to end, and the more he thought about it the more he was starting to see that those odds were astronomical. It was a miracle they didn't lose anyone. Something, somewhere managed to stack the odds in their favor, and it was driving him crazy that he couldn't come up with any reason other than teamwork. Maybe it just so happened that all those variables managed to come together in the right way for once; or maybe it really was as simple as a united front.

Yuffie huffed. He just knew she was rolling her eyes. "Let it go, Squall. You did good. I did good. We all kicked ass and maybe next time those Organization bozos will think twice about messing with people as obviously talented as we are. Man, you should have seen Aerith out there. You would have had a heart-attack and died from the awesomeness."

Wasn't that a disturbing thought? He didn't want to consider all the crazy stunts Aerith had been pulling—it was bad enough knowing what he did about Yuffie's—so he fell back on his standard reaction. "It's—"

"It's not," Yuffie said, interrupting what must be the two most common words to come out his mouth. "Not always. When are you going to get over this crazy obsession of yours? It's not like you can be someone else just because you say so. So, why?"

"Because that's not who I am anymore." Too late, Leon realized it was the first time he'd ever actually admitted to it. Before it was like folklore—whispered rumors of a man named Squall that were all denied. Now it was fact.

"I don't understand why it's such a big deal. So what? Sometimes you're Leon. Sometimes you're Squall. Only you would be so hung up on it that you've managed to turn it into multiple-personality disorder."

Leon wiped the shock from his face and stared down at her, long and hard. "Then why are you so insistent?"

Yuffie gave a half-hearted shrug and answered, "Because someone has to remind you where you came from instead of indulging you."

He almost asked her if she was feeling okay—but he was starting to see that he had underestimated Yuffie by miles. He didn't know how she managed to pull enough information together to put that theory together in the first place. "I will always correct you."

"Maybe that's the point." Yuffie stared up at the ceiling while Leon thought that over. A couple minutes later she'd decided he had enough time and said, "Did I ever tell you that in my world we had monsters? Like, honest-to-god, actual monsters. There were a lot of factors, I guess; whacko scientists, mutations from the reactors, that sort of stuff. Some were created as weapons and other just… happened."

Leon wasn't sure where she was going with this, but he waved her on.

"They all wound up loose, of course. Even the ones from the labs," Yuffie said, bitter and angry. "After a while there weren't wolves, there were mutated wolf-monsters. They had no natural predators, and there weren't many willing to take them on any more than they had to, so they thrived, took over. Eventually the regular wildlife started getting fiercer; they had to if they wanted to compete. Cid explained it to me once as 'survival of the fittest.' I think you're kind of like that."

"You think I'm like a monster?" Leon asked, not sure if he was supposed to take her little story at face-value. In a lot of ways he fit the bill, but instead of being grown in a lab he was grown in a Garden. He bet there wasn't much of a difference.

"No! I think you're… I think Squall is like the wildlife before and Leon… Fuck, none of this is coming out right."

Leon waited. His silence kept her off-balance and he planned to keep it up until she managed to say what she meant.

"That was a bad example." Yuffie took a breath and started over. "I think Squall is like… the template. Everything you are now is built off of who you were then. It's not a case of scrapping the whole thing and starting over; it's evolution. Survival of the fittest."

Leon's brain couldn't comprehend it. On one hand, he thought Yuffie might be a genius, and he liked the hypothesis she put forward. On the other, it was infuriating that Yuffie managed to hit the conclusion he'd been circling around for years from miles away. Pride dictated that he not let on how close to the mark she was.

"Ugh, now you've roped me into your stupid multiple-personalities deal." Yuffie threw her hands in the air. "Forget it. Forget I said anything. You're so crazy, you're making _me_ crazy! This is unacceptable!"

"I think," Leon said carefully, "that you might have been crazy to begin with." The conversation was over, but Yuffie had managed to rub off on him a little over the years, so he added, "Brat."

Yuffie countered, "Masochist."

"Kleptomaniac."

"_Sociopath._"

They could have gone on forever, so he wiped all emotion from his face before dealing the killing blow in the form of an over-exaggerated, "Whatever."

Yuffie laughed hard enough to confirm that Merlin still couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"You know, I am super pissed I didn't get to impale any of those assholes in trench coats."

"So violent." Leon chuckled, recognizing the change in subject. "Modest, too."

Yuffie poked him in the neck. "You are not one to lecture on either of those vices, he who lusts after the keyblade with a passion normally reserved for torrid romance novels."

He shrugged. It was true. Leon was mostly able to stop thinking he'd be better for the keyblade than Sora, but that didn't change the fact that he still wanted it. He didn't like being stuck holding the line while some kid ran off to save the worlds from collapsing. He wasn't cut out for it. Leon was used to leading the charge—he was _good_ at it—and being told someone else was better suited to the task was not something he took well.

"I have a thing for weaponry."

Yuffie cackled. "Don't I know it. I was only joking about the armory when we moved in."

The room fell silent. Leon wondered if these strange, winding conversations they had were Yuffie's equivalent of being used as a pillow. She had a knack for drawing his attention away from what plagued him and lightening his spirits. All the what-ifs of the past twenty-four hours didn't seem quite so urgent anymore.

He mused over the differences between Squall and Leon, again. Progress has been made, though that traitorous voice still lingered in the back of his mind, whispering that if Yuffie were gone, he would have left some things unsaid. He took her for granted, and while he wasn't sure what he might have regretted not saying he did know it was important. If nothing else, he owed it to the both of them to figure it out.

Leon scooted down the bed, turned to his side, and dropped his arm between them. Just like Yuffie needed someone to hold onto without being weak, Leon needed the reminder of her strength. He needed to keep in mind that it wasn't all on his shoulders. Yuffie fought, viciously, and when she fell Aerith was there to pick her up. It struck him with awe, how much stronger they were simply because they were a team. With Yuffie close by, shifting around to get more comfortable, it was easier to remember that he could trust her to hold her own. He'd still fight. He'd be over-protective and over-bearing and ream her out every time she did anything even the slightest bit stupid—but that was how it worked. That was what he contributed.

"You're doing that thing again," Yuffie said, sleep clouding her voice. "Turn off your brain. Sleep. You can angst in the morning."


	5. Chapter 5

**Part ****5**

Leon didn't bother bemoaning the fact that his life had become so ridiculous that he had to worry about heartless coming out of a computer system. It was kind of par for the course by that point. He sighed, studied the factory hidden underneath the computer lab one last time, and drew his blade. There were a lot, but he could take them.

He was starting to wonder if this was what the rest of his life was going to be like.

XxX

"You know, I've noticed something," Yuffie said. She was lying atop a half-finished wall, twirling a knife through her fingers and gave him an expectant look.

Leon rested a hip against the stone and stared out at their most recent project. "I'm proud of you."

For a moment he thought she was going to try to stab him. "Don't be like that. Anyway, ever get the impression that the heartless we're killing are actually staying dead for once?"

He was about to shoot off another smart-ass remark, then he stopped to think about it. She was right. There had been less activity lately. "Huh."

"Yeah. What do you suppose _that_ means?"

"I don't know."

Yuffie tilted her head. "Maybe Sora finally got a handle on things? Figured out how to stop 'em for good?"

The theory was a little too optimistic for Leon. Every single time he thought they were winning, something came along to sweep his feet out from under him. Leon could deal with disappointment, but he was getting tired of having his hopes annihilated at every turn.

He made a noncommittal grunt in response, unsure of how he felt. Logic dictated that Sora stopping the heartless for good would be the best thing that could happen. He was sick of fighting and never having anything to show for it. He just wanted to move on with his life. Illogically, he didn't want Sora to be the one to save them. Sora wasn't really a kid anymore, Leon had seen for himself how strong he'd become—there was even a fair amount of skill present—but Leon was bred for war. It didn't sit right with him that Sora could do something he couldn't.

"You're in a petty mood, aren't you?" Yuffie asked.

He grunted again, unwilling to admit it.

"It's alright," Yuffie assured him. She had a wicked gleam in her eye. "Being jealous of a sixteen year old doesn't make you any less of a man."

"I'm starting to reconsider my initial decision to not strangle you."

"You would never." Yuffie craned her neck and stared up at him with a smile. "I'm too valuable. Who else would you train with?"

"Cloud."

Yuffie held in her laughter, barely. "Yeah, you let me know how that works out for you."

"Tifa, then."

"Your insane and completely misguided notion of a fair fight would mean you'd have to go bare-hands." Yuffie was enjoying this argument far too much. "Which is stupid, by the way. It wouldn't matter to Tifa if you had _six_ weapons, she'd still kick your ass into next week."

"Fine, you're irreplaceable. My life would be a wasteland devoid of meaning without you." Leon rolled his eyes and ignored Yuffie's whoop of triumph.

"And don't you forget it!" Yuffie reached out and poked him in the side.

He almost smiled back at her before he remembered that he was Leon, and he didn't do that. She would _never_ let him live it down. He got the impression that Yuffie caught the moment anyway.

"What were you doing when it happened?" Yuffie asked. She tilted her head as Leon absorbed her question. "You know, when it started."

He didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to talk about much of anything, actually—but the thing about Yuffie was that if he refused she'd never stop asking. It was more effective to just throw her a bone and then let the conversation fade.

"I was on the phone."

"With who?"

Leon considered his options. He had been talking to Laguna, convinced the man had finally gone insane when he started rambling about shapeless, black masses coming through the walls. It had only taken minutes for Leon to realize that whatever Laguna was going on about, it was serious. Afterwards he had vowed—too late—that he would at least try to take Laguna's ramblings more seriously. It was the beginning of the end, there wasn't much else to say about it. He certainly wasn't going to give Yuffie specifics. "A politician."

Yuffie whistled. "Whoa. You must have been a big-wig."

"Not really." He paused, thought about changing the subject, and then against all reason asked, "What were you doing?"

"Cid was dropping me off in Wutai—where I'm from—Vincent was there, too. I'd always said the apocalypse would come before I set foot in that place again." Yuffie chuckled darkly. "Didn't really mean it, though. We held up pretty well, at first. Vince was the first to go down; those things were _after_ him. Aerith saved me and Cid. Don't ask me how, 'cause I don't know and she's still not talking about it, but she did. I guess you know the rest."

Leon nodded. It would be disrespectful to add commentary.

"Wasn't exactly the grand homecoming I'd been expecting." Yuffie kicked her legs back and forth for a couple minutes and then shot him a sly look. He could have sworn she looked nervous. "Who were you _really_ on the phone with?"

"I wasn't lying."

"But you weren't telling the truth, either." Yuffie pointed out.

Sometimes, it was massively annoying that Yuffie knew him well enough to tell. He also could have done without her ability to back him into a corner so far that the only way for him to stand his ground was to concede. "He was also my father."

Yuffie let out a harsh and maniacal laugh. "Wow. We have more in common than I thought. It's fun, huh? Having a Dad like that? Bet mine was worse than yours, though."

"Mine was a _moron_."

"Yeah? Well, mine spent fifteen years berating me for everything under the sun until I ran away. Then I was taken back, exiled, and, finally, welcomed home with open arms once he realized what a judgmental ass he was being." Yuffie sighed. Suddenly, she looked sad. "And that was such a shock that two days later, the whole freaking planet imploded."

"Oh." There wasn't much he could say to that.

"I guess what matters is he came around. I hated that place, but I did miss it sometimes, when I didn't have a home to go back to." Yuffie swung her legs to either side of the wall and sat up.

Leon had always considered Yuffie somewhat of an open book. She had her secrets, yes, but she was usually abundantly clear when she was keeping them. He thought back to a long ago conversation with Aerith, when he wouldn't even dream to ask or answer these types of questions with anyone, and wondered what it was that made him want to now. He was about to ask what Aerith had meant when she'd said Yuffie was in the midst of her third war when Yuffie folded her legs and leaned forward.

"You know, I think I get the whole 'call me Leon' thing, now. Sometimes you just have to let it go. I guess I kind of did the same thing, except instead of a name, it's a title. I don't want it, and I don't want it to define me. Not that it ever did, much." She shrugged. "Yeah. I think I can see where you were coming from."

"What was your title?"

Yuffie snorted. "Didn't anyone tell you? I was a princess."

Leon shook his head. Even with indisputable evidence laid out in front of him, he wouldn't believe it. "Of course you were."

"Doesn't matter." Yuffie shrugged, unbothered by his skepticism. "I'm not, anymore. Haven't been for a long time, actually."

"How is this the first time I'm hearing about it?"

Yuffie grinned. "Like you're so willing to discuss your previous life? You wouldn't _believe_ the amount of snooping I had to do just to figure out what your damn job was. It's a two way street, buster."

"Point taken."

"I guess the biggest difference is that my friends were willing to keep my secrets. All you had was Merlin."

Leon growled. That man was more trouble than he was worth sometimes.

"You might not be aware," Yuffie said, deadly serious, "but he _talks_."

"I'll try to keep that in mind."

"Leon?" Yuffie asked after a few quiet minutes had passed.

He thought about praising her for managing to get his name right, but figured it was best not to question her sudden cooperation. She had said, after all, that she understood. "Hm?"

"If it's really over, what are we going to do?" Yuffie's voice was drowning in loss—whether for previous trials or an uncertain future, he didn't know.

"We keep building." Leon shrugged. He didn't know what the right answer was, and he didn't want to search too hard for it. It would destroy him to make plans for a peaceful future, only to have it ripped out from under him again. For now, he was erring on the side of caution.

"And then?"

"I guess after that we get to live." The possibility was always so vague, and it never felt further away than when he could almost reach out and touch it.

XxX

Leon was used to being the one to break first, no matter how distasteful he found it to be. It happened more and more with every passing year, since the first time he left Hollow Bastion. It happened often when Yuffie was involved.

She had been spending most nights curled up in his bed. He suspected she was having just as hard of a time as he was trying to figure out if the heartless really had stopped multiplying, and what that might mean for them once the last of them had been eradicated. In some ways, Leon had expected to spend the rest of his life doing battle against them. The idea that they could become more of a nuisance than anything else wasn't one he could absorb.

He'd been trying to sleep for over an hour. Yuffie had, miraculously, kept her mouth shut the whole time. Either she knew one word would see her kicked out of his room faster than she could blink, or she was in the rare mood for some quiet as well. Leon was having a harder time reading her than he used to. It wasn't that she had changed, or that he'd been gifted with a new perspective. The space between them was just different. The shift had become more apparent over the past few weeks, but it had been there for a while, growing.

He was lost in his thoughts, and then Yuffie scooted closer, and instead of poking him or tickling him or making an obnoxious comment, she reached over and slid the palm of her hand along his neck.

He hadn't realized he was wound in the first place, but that simple, soft touch shot down his spine, and he broke in an instant. He couldn't remember the last time someone touched him like that. Only Yuffie dared in the first place and even then it was always for her sake, not his. It was always pokes and prods, silent pleas for an anchor when reality got to be too much for her. She had never laid a finger on him—or anyone, as far as he could recall—with such a sweet tenor.

Yuffie didn't do anything else. She just lay there, stroking her fingers along his nape, and suddenly they were playing chicken. She kept touching and he almost shook with the effort it took not to do something about it. He was torn between tossing her off the bed, throwing her down on it, or silently enjoying the innocent touch that meant nothing and changed everything. It was a long forgotten sensation coursing through him; like a shard of a pleasant memory, still beyond his reach but drawing closer with every second. It took everything he had not to chase it down.

Yuffie was nineteen now, and Leon was twenty-seven. Eight years had never been so vast and meaningless at the same time. He wondered if in another year, when he could say they were both in their twenties, it wouldn't feel like the difference should mean something.

More fragments swept through his mind, uncertainty and confusion heavy in their wake. He didn't know what to do, or even what he wanted. Whatever game she was playing, she was going to win, Leon knew it already. Battles were decided within the first blows, and he still hadn't even begun to think about his counter. He may as well have ceded the moment she decided to try something. He was going to put up a fight anyway—he was terrible at backing down—but not until tomorrow. For tonight he was going to ignore it the best he could, keep his eyes closed, and _make_ himself fall asleep. Who knew he was such a coward?

"You awake?" Yuffie's voice was quiet, cautious. He hadn't ever heard her sound so unsure before.

Leon pretended he wasn't. Her hand was still on his neck, and he began to worry he was losing his mind for how aware he was of it and how much it affected him.

"I guess it doesn't matter. We don't talk, you know? You stay silent and I never shut up, and in the end what it amounts to is that neither of us say anything. So it's not like you'll tell anyone that I admit it—you saved me. I didn't even notice I was drowning, and then you swam down and pulled me up and yelled at me for twenty minutes for trying to tread water with lead shoes on." She stroked his cheek once. "And so I'm going to save you, too. I'll keep you afloat no matter what comes; I'll never leave. I promise."

She shifted closer, her thumb brushed over his cheek again. "I bet you're so gorgeous when you smile, it's unfair. But you know what? I don't miss it. I like the scowl."

Leon's brand-new and already weak resolve cracked under the confession. This time, Aerith really was going to kill him.

XxX

"Not that I don't like having you around so much, but are you ever going to tell me what you're avoiding?" Aerith was entirely too amused by Leon's ever-increasing presence in her kitchen.

It had been two weeks since what he had taken to calling 'the incident', and he'd decided that hiding out with Aerith killed nearly all the birds he needed with one stone. He could avoid Yuffie touching him, which negated the possibility that he would do something stupid, which would prevent Aerith from turning violent. All that was left was to keep Yuffie out of his bedroom, and that had been a chore all on its own. He absolutely could not endure another confession whispered across his sheets. The first one had been—he didn't know. He didn't know, and it was _killing_ him.

He considered the various explanations he could give Aerith, and then threw all his deliberations out the window. Given the choice between being angry or hopelessly lost, Leon chose to be angry. He snarled. "Yuffie."

Aerith quirked an amused brow at him. "Okay?"

"She's driving me insane." It was more that avoiding Yuffie was driving him insane, but he saw no reason to reveal any more details than necessary.

"Oh, no." Aerith's expression fell. Leon felt so damn guilty that his forehead hit the kitchen table with an audible crack. "Don't tell me you gave in already. Shoot. I owe Tifa money. I thought you'd hold out longer."

His head whipped up to fix Aerith with the dirtiest glare he could manage. "Excuse me?!"

Aerith laughed. "So, what'd she do?"

"She _touched_ me." He felt ridiculous just saying it.

"In your naughty place?" Leon would take hoards of heartless over what their absence had done for Aerith's mood. Who knew she had it in her?

"My neck." He wasn't just being ridiculous; he'd crossed the line into certifiable about four miles back. Worst of all, Aerith knew it—and she was mocking him.

"Well, it could have been worse. Be thankful she didn't listen to any of Tifa's suggestions."

"Why? _Why_ are you encouraging this?" He didn't understand. Aerith had never said as much, but he was _sure_ she was barely holding in the opinion that any sort of relationship between him and Yuffie outside the bounds of mentorship was exceedingly inappropriate. Suddenly, she not only didn't care, but found it funny. The whole situation was turning his brain into a pretzel, and he didn't appreciate it one bit.

"Because trying to reason with Yuffie always goes over so well." Aerith let out a little sigh and got serious. "Honestly, I'd hoped she'd get her little crush out of her system without ever trying to act on it, or you finding out, but I guess there's a point where it's not going to go away on its own. She needs to move on, whichever direction that winds up being in."

A significant part of Leon didn't want to ask, but he was compelled to anyway. "When exactly did this start?"

"A couple months ago, I think, after the last time we saw Sora. Probably longer. You know how Yuffie is about keeping things to herself." Silence fell over the kitchen, and for a couple minutes Leon felt like he could _think_. Then Aerith went and dropped another bomb. "Do you like her?"

"_Fuck_." Leon crossed his arms and desperately tried to stop himself from forming an answer. "How would I even begin to navigate a loaded question like that? I've never thought about it before."

"Before?" Aerith asked, a scheming twinkle in her eye. "Before what, exactly?"

Leon would not be answering that question under any circumstance. That moment was too private, too meaningful, and too precious to ever share. He had to nip this in the bud. The simplest of all possible objections popped out of his mouth before he could think of how Aerith would react. "She's too young."

Aerith flat-out _laughed_ at him. Leon decided his time would be better spent helping Cid, even if he would have to learn mechanical engineering first. It'd be worth it.

"You don't have to enjoy my dilemma this much, you know." Leon felt betrayed in an irrational and childish manner. Aerith was supposed to be the sensible one of them.

"Oh, but I do." She calmed her laughter and grinned. "It's nice, us talking like this. I'm sorry you're confused, but I won't deny I'm pleased you wound up coming to me about it."

He was about to tell her that didn't make any sense whatsoever, but then he paused and thought about it from her point of view. He hadn't ever considered what Aerith might think of the distance he kept between them. He'd basically done nothing but avoid and snap at her for three years. She probably thought he hated her.

"Don't give me that look." Aerith's scolding was more of a tease than anything else. "Some wounds take a long time to heal. Just be happy that yours are on the mend."

Leon's gaze shifted from guilty to pleading. He felt like he'd been stuck in a tornado until he couldn't tell the difference between north and south anymore, and more than anything he wanted it to _go away._ "What am I supposed to do about this?"

"No clue." Aerith smirked. "Maybe you could try, oh, I don't know, talking to Yuffie about it?"

Leon would rather throw himself off the postern.

XxX

Leon was sitting out on the bailey when he finally started to make sense of all the stray thoughts swirling in his head. He sat at the very edge, legs dangling over the side and palms set back, flat against solid ground. The setting was reminiscent of Traverse Town—in front of him there was the cliff, the maw; out in the distance, the Vale was quiet. It was the stage of his last great battle. He knew it with the same certainty he had the day he fell off the High Tower and offered his name in sacrifice for his failings. There were many battles before, and there would be many to come—but out in the maw, that was Leon's last stand.

He thought about what Yuffie said—how it didn't always have to be one or the other—and decided he agreed. After all that happened, Leon stayed the same every bit as much as he changed. He still wasn't all that fond of people in general, but now he tried to make sure his friends knew he cared. In the end, he couldn't run off to rescue Yuffie when she needed help, just like he couldn't save the people who mattered most when the heartless invaded the first time—but he was starting to come to terms with it. A lot of what happened back then was his fault, then again, a lot of it wasn't. He wouldn't ever be able to save everyone, no matter how much he wanted to. He had to trust in his comrades to take care of themselves and they would watch out for everyone else together. That was the only way it worked.

Leon wasn't ever going to be rid of that last chunk of cynicism resting in the bottom of his heart, and despite that, he'd still allow hope to grab hold of him far sooner than he should every time. That was how he was, and the only thing he got when he tried to smother those traits was a path leading straight to self-destruction.

It was easier to go through the list of things he didn't particularly like or understand about himself now that he'd gotten some distance. Leon had always considered himself pragmatic, but every passing day showed him that he hadn't even known what that word meant.

Squall followed orders. He also made sure to get his orders from the people who would tell him what he wanted to hear. In the end that was little better than running off half-cocked. Squall did not function in a unit. He didn't let anyone get too close and he was weaker for it. Leon struggled with those things, too, but he accepted them. He also had friends who weren't opposed to getting rough, who were willing to do whatever it took to keep him from drawing back too far. He'd valued the people he was close to before more than he'd ever put into words, but the truth was that he forced them to handle him. It could have been that he was older and more desensitized that made it easier to get close to Yuffie and Aerith—but most likely it was that he had perspective. He'd let down his walls once and lost everything because he only did it part way. He'd learned his lesson. No matter how much Yuffie and Aerith pissed him off, manipulated him, or called him by the wrong name, he'd never be anything less than all-in.

Back in Traverse Town, even after coming back to Hollow Bastion, Squall would have gone running to the first person who'd tell him to hop on a gummi ship and take off after Sora, but Leon? Leon was going to stay put because above all else he refused to watch the end of the world again. He would do his part even if he hated it; even if it meant he had to hold the line and watch someone else be the hero. Sora had proven himself many times over, no matter what he faced, and it was time Leon gave him his due.

He tried so hard to let go of the past that he never realized he was clinging to it every minute since he was ejected from Hollow Bastion and landed in Traverse Town. Squall or Leon—there wasn't much of a difference. Mostly, it had to do with restraint. It was all in the fine-tuning. He couldn't go back and start over; after all that happened, he didn't even want to. The only thing he could do was keep building, keep adapting to the changing world and trust that he'd come out okay when all was said and done.

From his spot on the bailey the past few years looked like more of a second chance rather than a punishment. If he hadn't survived the first fall of Hollow Bastion—if he hadn't spent all those years miserable in Traverse Town—he would never have had the chance to rebuild what he lost. He wouldn't know the true value of comrades, or that he couldn't carve out all the things he didn't like about himself and pretend he was still whole. He never would have had the chance to get it right.

And Yuffie… he still didn't know. She was a whirlwind. No matter how much time he spent trying to figure out what he wanted and what he should say, she was going to blow it all to pieces the moment she opened her mouth. There was no use trying to prepare. He watched the sun setting over the landscape and considered that maybe that was the way it was supposed to be.

He straightened up with the tell-tale shuffling of skipping feet from the market place. He picked out the pattern and allowed himself a quiet smile. Yuffie had a walk for every mood; she was happy today. The sun dipped below the horizon and he considered doing the logical thing and asking what was going through her head, like Aerith told him to—but that wasn't his style and she'd just lie anyway. Yuffie did everything to her own beat, and she'd talk when she was ready. She always did. By then he might be ready, too. It was harmless to give in, to figure out the answers for himself, in his own time, and that was exactly what he was going to do. This once, he would follow her lead without protest.

Yuffie didn't bother with a greeting. She crouched behind him; her knees pressed into his ribs, and she slung her arms over his shoulders. Her head rested next to his as they watched the last of the sunset together. "So, what are we brooding about today?"

"Etymology."

"Gross," Yuffie said. It was one of her defaults. "Let's go spar instead."

She shifted like she was going to stand and before he could make himself stop he grabbed her forearm, keeping her in place. She had to be uncomfortable in that position, but she relaxed, and then after a minute she laughed.

"Hey," she whispered. Leon didn't know she could do that. "Is that a gunblade on your hip, or are you just happy to see me?"

He said nothing. He hadn't been so embarrassed since he was seventeen and convinced his tactics instructor had a crush on him. Yuffie had a way of bringing everyone down to her level. Though, if anyone asked her, she'd say they needed to check their directions.

It took him a second to regain his cool. "Is that a shuriken poking me in the back?"

Yuffie squeezed tighter. The next bit came out in a rush of words so quick he wasn't sure he heard them right.

"What?"

"I said," Yuffie huffed, "that I love you. You know that, right?" She took one look at him and blathered on. "You mean a lot to me. You don't have to say anything; I know it's not your thing. I just wanted to make sure you knew."

And there was the whirlwind.

It was a chance he couldn't pass up. If nothing else Yuffie should hear, explicitly, that he cared about her, too. He didn't have to define it right now. "I know. It goes both ways."

Yuffie stood so fast she almost fumbled her step. She looked at him like he might be possessed, or a robot. He never knew with her.

"Okay…" She drew the word out and then shook it off. "Okay. Can we go kill things now? Because I don't know about you, but that moment we almost had there totally filled my sap quota for the rest of the year."

"And killing things is obviously the solution."

"Yes." She nodded and pivoted, swinging her arms in the air as she carried on with her requirements. "Big things. Monstrous, gigantic, _ugly_ things. With horns. I'm telling you now, I want a trophy. Come on, let's blow this popsicle stand!"

Leon waited for her to realize her mistake, but she just stood across the bailey, her foot tapping with impatience. "The popsicle stand is on the other side of town."

"You know what I meant. It's one of those saying things, right? An… an idiom?"

Leon chuckled. "Not even close."

"I took a shot." Yuffie shrugged and started making her way out of the bailey.

He made to follow her only to pause when a bird flew overhead. The sight was stunning. He couldn't remember the last time he saw an actual bird in the skies. Maybe Hollow Bastion really was, at last, on the mend and free to retake its former name, even if he wasn't. He felt the tiniest spark of hope. Part of him wanted to block it out, to crush it so the heartless couldn't do it for him, but like every other time he couldn't let it go. He welcomed the rush.

A blur of white floated through the breeze; Leon caught the feather between his fingers. It felt like forgiveness, goodbye, and approval all tangled together. It was silly. It was only a feather, but Leon wanted to believe it was something more. He thought he might understand what Cloud meant that day out in the maw when he'd said that Aerith had died, but she was never gone.

Yuffie was halfway to the site separating the bailey from the postern before he swung his blade onto his shoulder and followed. He still wasn't sure what he wished he would have said to her before that last battle, but the uncertainty had stopped feeling tragic and raw. He'd let that side of him that would always be Squall dwell on what-ifs. Leon was going to live for tomorrow.

* * *

**The end :-)**


End file.
